A landlord has a bill of more than £85,000 for unlawfully letting a basement flat.

As part of a council planning enforcement crackdown in one part of Islington, north London, the local authority asked a major local landlord to ensure all his properties were being used lawfully in planning terms.

When the landlord applied to confirm the use of one flat in particular was lawful, it emerged that flat was subject to an enforcement notice. This notice been complied with by the flat’s previous landlord but was being flouted by the current owner.

The enforcement notice said the flat was “an unsatisfactory and substandard unit of residential accommodation” with “inadequate light and outlook and poor living environment”.  

The notice required unauthorised use of the basement as a self-contained flat to cease and the council initiated legal action against the owner.

It now emerges that over the summer, landlord Andrew Panayi pleaded guilty to breach of a planning enforcement notice relating to the unauthorised use of the basement flat and at a Proceeds of Crime Act this month hei was ordered to pay a fine of £2,000, a costs award of £15,900, and was issued a confiscation order of £70,000 in relation to the profits made from renting the basement flat.