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A council has prosecuted a private landlord for the third time in two years for breaches of the Housing Act 2004 and failures to propery manage HMOs.

Gary Samuel is the owner and landlord of a property in the Grangetown area of the city, which comprises ground floor commercial premises and three bedsits with shared kitchen and bathroom facilities.

An improvement notice was served on Samuel in 2012 requiring repairs and improvements to be carried out; they did not happen to Samuel was convicted in October 2012 at Cardiff Magistrates Court and fined £1,200.

His failure to do the work - despite substantial correspondence from the council - led to another prosecution in June 2014, when the Magistrates Court fined him £3,000 and he was ordered to pay costs of £200.

Samuel was also served with a notice in April of this year under section 235 of the 2004 Housing Act requiring him to submit documentation to the council to prove systems were in place to protect the health, safety and welfare of his tenants.

The documents requested were current and immediately previous gas certificates, a current electrical installation condition report and energy performance certificate for the property, the fire alarm commissioning or test and inspection certificate for the property, all current tenancy agreements and the last three years' certified accounts for the property.

The council initiated yet additional legal action after Samuel failed to comply with the notice and a hearing was held at Cardiff Magistrates Court - which he did not attend - and in his absence he was convicted and fined a further £200 for the offences. In addition, he was ordered to pay £200 towards the council's costs as well as a £20 victim surcharge.

Comments

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    Legislation is alright if there is somebody to enforce it; as there has been apparently a reduction of 27% in the number of Trading Standards Officers since 2009 it's not too difficult to see where this is going!

    • 18 September 2014 23:12 PM
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    Exactly. Where's the deterrent if you're only going to make him pay pittance in fines You would have thought, after three convictions in two years, that banning him might be a good idea. He's clearly not learning from his mistakes, he clearly thinks he can carry on getting away with it, so the book needs to be thrown to show him otherwise.

    • 18 September 2014 11:23 AM
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    What pathetic penalties! What interest in doing things properly does someone like this have when the penalty for not is cheaper than doing it right

    • 18 September 2014 08:49 AM
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