Landlord Nadeem Ahmed has been told to pay his former tenants £24,592 after he failed to license his HMO which suffered from mould and a rat infestation.

Two of the four tenants - Deepak Kaggalipura Shanmukhanand, Jasleen Kaur Sethi, Anush Gowda Rajanna and Sanyukta Jain – did not get their deposit back and the other two had spent months making persistent requests to finally receive partial deposits back. None of the deposits were protected.

Sethi told a First Tier Property Tribunal that there had been disrepair at the property in Brislington Hill, Bristol, which they had repeatedly reported to the landlord, including mould in the kitchen and three bedrooms. Ahmed had told them to open the windows and turn the heating on which had not remedied the situation.

She reported the vermin infestation, and while he did send an exterminator, no repairs were made to block the holes where the rats had entered the property. There had been a second event which was also resolved, although there had been no long-term solution undertaken. Ahmed sent them an invoice for cleaning and rubbish removal, however Sethi said the rubbish had been there at the start of their year-long tenancy in September 2023. There had also been water ingress to the kitchen.

Certificate

Justice for Tenants, who represented the tenants, said no gas safety certificate, electrical installation safety report or energy performance certificate were provided.

The judge said as Ahmed had not engaged with proceedings, he couldn’t consider whether there had been a reasonable excuse for failure to hold a HMO licence, but that the landlord had been, to some extent, engaged in the management of the property, albeit falling short of a reasonable standard.

Ahmed was said to have explained that he sold his company and no longer received associated post or emails and was abroad. He had not been aware of the forthcoming hearing, nor did he consider the matter to have relevance to him.

The judge made a rent repayment order for 80% of the rent paid.

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