| Mohammed Ali Rana |
| Mohammed Ali Rana Oxford Rogue Landlord OXFORD, Internet |
| 26th of Aug, 2011 by User165008 |
| Unscrupulous landlords are to be driven out of Oxford by the creation of a public register displaying details of approved homes for rent.An increase in the number of landlords prosecuted by the city council in the past year for renting out unfit properties has led to the urgent creation of the list.Details of the scheme - which should be operating within months - are released for the first time today and landlords are being urged to sign up. The idea is prevent tenants living in shabby conditions and to provide people with an at-a-glance guide to renting safe properties and the safeguards landlords have put in place.Oxford City Council's chief environmental health officer Ian Wright said: "There are approximately 11,000 rented properties and 5,000 homes in multiple occupation and about 1,000 landlords in the city."We're making more prosecutions now than we have ever made before and I think the scheme would work very well in Oxford."There are some dodgy landlords out there - that's the bottom line - and they need to realise the buck stops with them."Similar registration schemes are already operating in Southampton, Reading, Darlington and Norwich. Some Oxford tenants continue to rent properties with faulty smoke alarms, unchecked gas appliances, defective windows and no ventilation.The council has successfully prosecuted five landlords this year.The most recent was Mohammed Ali Rana, who runs Chandlers Estate Agents, who was charged with four breaches of housing regulations and failing to comply with a notice served under the Housing Act.Environmental health officers visited his property in St Mary's Road, East Oxford, last October after complaints from tenants.They found a faulty smoke alarm defective windows and a damaged wall. Rana was given a month to make repairs but failed to comply. He was subsequently taken to court and fined £12,000 for renting out an unsafe house. Ed Turner, the council's executive member for housing, said: "There are some landlords that are not living up to their obligations.They're not keeping up the maintenance of their properties and tenants are living in sub-standard accommodation that could be potentially life-threatening."What we're saying to them is 'if you don't keep up the properties, we will come to get you'. "The accreditation scheme would give people a reliable list of landlords and properties that they know have had all the necessary checks performed on them."If there's a list of reliable landlords you know to be safe, then why would people go with landlords that aren't signed up?"TENANT'S STORY: Paul Morgan, 49, and his partner Kinesha Brown, 25, lived for more than three years in a home in Kelburne Road, Cowley, which they rented from landlord Rizwan Sultan.Mr Morgan eventually sought help from the environmental health team at the city council after becoming fed up with the poor condition of the property.He said: "The landlord did nothing in the time we were living there. He would always promise to come and fix things, but he never did."The effect it had on my partner's health was bad. She had a permanent cold and was always unwell. There was mould on our walls."In the end, I got fed up and finally reported the landlord to the council, because something needed to be done."Mr Morgan said if the accreditation scheme had been in place when he was looking for a property to rent, he would have used it.He added: "It's a great idea, because there are a lot of landlords out there that don't take care of their properties. They take the money and that's about all they do."LEGAL ACTION: Mohammed Rana, who runs Chandlers Estate Agents, was fined £12,000 for renting an unsafe house in St Mary's Road, East Oxford.Rizwan Sultan, the landlord of a property in Kelburne Road, Cowley, was fined £450 for renting an unsafe home, where the ceiling had collapsed. He was also told to pay costs of £295, as well as the cost of the city council's repairs to the house.Alim Iqba, the landlord of a property in Bullingdon Road, East Oxford, was given a conditional discharge for 24 months for renting a property deemed to be in an unsafe condition and ordered to pay costs of £450.Letting agencies Allen McAllister and Hutton Parker were both prosecuted over a licensed house in multiple occupation in Beckett Street, listed by the council as three separate properties, which was in an unsafe condition. Allen McAllister was fined £700 for each of the three properties, plus £475.50 in costs, a total of £2,575.50. Hutton Parker was told to pay a total of £6,565.50.Nadeem Aftab, owner of a property in Nuffield Road, Headington, was fined £6,000 and £1,000 in costs for failing to license a house in multiple occupation and renting it in an unsafe condition. |
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