London borough prosecutes 134 landlords for Housing Act offences

Revealing the latest figures for its activities since introducing a mandatory scheme to license all private rented properties, the council said it had also:

• Completed 1,997 enforcement visits to unlicensed properties;
• Sent out 5,078 warning letters;
• Seen 82 cautions issued for first time offences.

Some 30,000 licensing applications have been made to Newham since it launched the scheme last year.

Newham’s enforcement work has seen action taken against 101 so-called ‘beds in sheds’ and 114 unlawful conversions of houses into flats. More than 100 landlords have been prosecuted for planning offences.

It added that it had identified more than 2,000 cases with planning “irregularities” which it would follow up with enforcement action in 2014.

The highest so fine imposed on a landlord is £12,000.

Publication of the statistics comes after the Department for Communities and Local Government awarded the council more than £1m to tackle the issue of ‘beds in sheds’.

This represented more than 25% of the total funds made available by the DCLG and three times the next highest amount for a single council (£293,000 for Blackpool).

Sir Robin Wales, Mayor of Newham, said: “Newham is leading the country when it comes to tackling bad landlords who flout the law. This money will allow us to build on our enforcement work and continue to target the criminal landlords operating within Newham.

“We will never accept the exploitation of some of our most vulnerable residents by unscrupulous landlords who force them to live in dangerous and unacceptable conditions, and we will continue to work to improve the standard of accommodation for all residents across the borough."