A letting agent in Epping Forest has efficiently argued his case, which offers better readability for letting brokers throughout the nation, after being issued with a fantastic by Epping Forest for an unlicensed home in a number of occupation (HMO).
Epping Forest had imposed a £7,064.32 penalty on Kartal Cetin for his company’s alleged involvement within the management or administration of an unlicensed HMO opposite to part 72(1) of the Act.
The fantastic associated to the letting of two vacant rooms in a flat in Loughton in October 2021. Two tenants every paid a holding deposit and a month’s hire prematurely to Cetin’s letting agent. Epping Forest stated the flat then turned an HMO liable to licensing necessities as these lettings meant there have been 5 residents total.
Nevertheless, after Martin Rodger KC, Deputy Chamber President, heard an enchantment in opposition to a call of the First-Tier Tribunal (Property Chamber) lodged by letting agent Kartal Cetin in opposition to Epping Forest District Council, it was deemed that Cetin and his company can’t be a ‘particular person managing’ a home in a number of occupation (HMO) inside the which means of part 263(3) of the Housing Act 2004, the Higher Tribunal (Lands Chamber) stated.
Cetin’s enchantment argued that as a letting agent he was not an individual managing the property and so couldn’t be responsible for the offence underneath part 72 since his firm had by no means managed the property.
Epping Forest argued {that a} strictly literal method to the development of part 263(3) was wanted.
However Roger stated he’s not drawn to an “over-literal development of part 263(3)”.
He defined: “The significance of the definition of ‘particular person managing’ isn’t that it identifies an occasion or a transaction however that it describes a standing to which sure obligations are hooked up, together with duty for licensing, the place it’s required, and duty for compliance with the Administration Laws.”
He stated an agent receiving a single instalment of hire ought to be adequate to put the agent underneath the identical statutory obligations as a landlord or a managing agent.
“The truth that the aim of the definition of particular person managing is to determine those that shall be topic to persevering with obligations, backed by prison and civil sanctions, calls into query the supposed breadth of the definition,” Rodger stated.
“Did Parliament imply to attribute that standing to an agent with no involvement in administration? I’d recommend not.”
Treating a letting agent as a ‘particular person managing’ may create ambiguity and depart tenants confused as to who was managing the property, in accordance with Rodger.
He added: “Secondly, merely as a matter of language, it might be shocking if the descriptor ‘particular person managing’ was supposed to use to an agent who was not engaged to handle the property and who had no energy to take action.”
Roger concluded: “A cost made to an agent of the owner whose solely operate is to let the property in query and who thereafter has no involvement within the persevering with administration, isn’t a cost inside the scope of part 263(3).
“For that motive, the corporate was not an individual managing the HMO and Mr Cetin didn’t commit an offence when the corporate acquired the cost of hire from [the tenant].”
The FTT decreased the fantastic to £3,532.16 however maintained the offence had been dedicated.
