Rogue landlord fined £485,000 for renting out his shed as five flats

'Yehuda Levhar has felt the force of the law for choosing to rip off tenants, house them in appalling conditions and ignore planning regulations.'

A rogue landlord whose tenants lived in ‘appalling conditions’ has been fined nearly half a million pounds.

Brent council was tipped off to the rogue landlord’s activities by neighbours 10 years ago, but it took them seven years to track him down and take him to court.

Yehuda Levhar was found illegally renting a large garage in Sudbury, north west London, as five flats as well as a house on the same premises which had been split into two flats without planning permission.

Housing officers served a planning enforcement notice to stop the house and garage being rented out as seven flats, but the landlord didn’t comply.

Tenants said their landlord was called Barry Jacobs – but council workers were only able to locate ‘Barry’ in 2016 and couldn’t prove who he was.

The premises was later registered with the land registry under Levhar’s name, meaning he could finally be tracked down and taken to court.

Following three years of court hearings, due to the case’s complexity, Levhar was finally prosecuted last week.

Judge Sherrard KC ordered Levhar to pay £60,000 in costs to the council, a £1,000 fine to the court and a £424,000 confiscation order to the government for the criminal profit he made over several years.

Councillor Harbi Farah said: ‘Yehuda Levhar has felt the force of the law for choosing to rip off tenants, house them in appalling conditions and ignore planning regulations.

‘This sort of exploitation is illegal and we will root out every last landlord in Brent who acts like this.

‘We will utilise in full force our recently granted borough-wide licensing, which will enable us to improve standard of living for renters in Brent, and give landlords clear guidance on what responsibilities are expected of them to safeguard renters’ security.’

There have unfortunately been plenty of rogue landlords named and shamed by the courts in recent years, including one squeezing 35 men into a three-bedroom home – however only 56 private landlords had been blacklisted and placed on the government’s rogue landlord register four years since it was launched.

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