Houses in Multiple Occupation – A Cautionary Tale for Errant Landlords

Pressure on the housing market has led to the conversion of many redundant office buildings into flats and the number of such projects is likely to be greatly increased by shifting work patterns brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic. A Court of Appeal ruling, however, powerfully signalled that…

Jan 28, 2021

The case concerned an office block that had been converted into 47 flats. After a housing officer visited, the local authority employed its powers under the Housing Act 2004 to serve a number of improvement notices on the company that owned the block’s freehold. The notices, amongst other things, required the company to remedy fire safety and electrical hazards and to install double glazing and central heating in some of the flats which were said to be excessively cold.

After some of the notices were not complied with, the council imposed civil penalties on the company totalling £140,000. The company’s director and majority shareholder received identical penalties on the basis that he had consented to or connived in the company’s failures. In addition, each of them received penalties of £96,600 in respect of breaches of the Licensing and Management of Houses in Multiple Occupation (Additional Provisions) (England) Regulations 2007.

After the council served a prohibition order barring the building’s use as residential premises, the company’s rental income dried up and it entered administration. The company’s and the director’s appeal to the Upper Tribunal was subsequently rejected, save in respect of the amount of the penalties. The company’s overall penalties were reduced to £75,000 and the director’s to £99,000.

Dismissing the director’s appeal against that outcome, the Court rejected his plea that he had suffered double punishment, both as an individual and as a shareholder in the company. His penalties reflected his responsibility for the conduct of the company’s affairs, his personal knowledge of the condition of the building and his responsibility for the occurrence of similar problems at another property. The penalties, whether viewed individually or in aggregate, could not be impugned as excessive or unjust.

‘Secular Atheism’ a Philosophical Belief Worthy of Human Rights Protection

It is a fundamental feature of any democratic society that anyone can freely express their philosophical beliefs, even if others may find them offensive. An Employment Tribunal (ET) powerfully made that point in the case of a train conductor who was sacked after venting his secular atheist views on social media. In welcoming the reopening of pubs at the end of a COVID-19 lockdown, the man wrote an online post urging people not to let their way of life ‘become some sort of Muslim alcohol-free…

ET Failed to Consider Whether Rejecting Claim Was in Interests of Justice

The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has found that, when rejecting a woman’s claim because the name of the respondent on the claim form did not match the name of the employer on the early conciliation certificate, the Employment Tribunal (ET) erred in law in failing to consider whether it was in the interests of justice to reject the claim. The woman had been dismissed from her job as a sales associate. She considered her dismissal to be unfair and/or discriminatory. She received an early…

Veteran Train Depot Controller Succeeds in Unfair Dismissal Claim

Workplace investigations and disciplinary proceedings, if not conducted fairly, commonly have equally unfair results. That was certainly so in the case of a veteran train depot controller who was summarily dismissed after a locomotive hit the buffers. Due to a failure in the radio system used by the depot’s staff to communicate with one another, the controller did not hear a colleague’s crucial message. As a result, he failed to stop a train that he was shunting before it struck the buffers,…