LANDLORD EXPOSED: Deceit, Fake Identities, and Stolen Deposits!
We’ve got a gut-wrenching tale of deceit and deception that ended with a whopping £37,000 fine for you today!
We’re going to look at how and why a Bristol-based landlord got fined and what you can learn from his failures.
What happened in Bristol?
Thomas Flight is a Bristol based landlord with multiple properties to his name – only… he didn’t always use HIS name.
That’s right, this isn’t a story about a genuine mistake, this is a story about fraud. In short, Flight hid his identity from his tenants in order to hang onto their deposits.
One of Flight’s tenants Sarah (not her real name) rented one of seven flats in her landlord’s Portland Square property from 2016 to 2017. All Sarah wanted to know is if her deposit had been protected and why her energy costs were so high. Pretty simple question – especially as you as a landlord have to protect the deposit in a government approved scheme, so you should have proof of this and your tenant should have a copy of that proof!
But what followed, for Sarah, was a torrent of abuse from the letting agent that accused her of being on ‘medication or drugs that may have [a] side effect of paranoia.’ They also told Sarah’s boyfriend that she was:
a very unstable and dangerous little girl or she has mental health issues.
As Flight was hiding his identity, creating fake letting agents to hide behind. When Sarah continued to make complaints, the ‘agent’ demanded she stop because her £1,200 deposit had been ‘gobbled up’ by the admin fees for her maintenance requests!
And they weren’t joking because when Sarah ended the tenancy and contacted the deposit protection service (DPS), she was told that her landlord had refused to use its services. So Sarah sent a court order, but never got a reply and gave up.
Five years later, she still hasn’t seen a penny of her deposit.
How was Thomas Flight caught?
Flash forward to February 2021, Flight was interviewed by Bristol City Council in relation to alleged criminal offences. However, he didn’t cooperate and blamed everything on a letting agent… who didn’t appear to exist.
Many of the people that Flight’s tenants interacted with were completely made up by Flight himself. Tenants received made-up landlord and letting agent information, including false names and addresses and one of the directors’ of his company was completely fictitious.
The local council pointed out that this:
[allowed] him to keep security deposit money instead of returning it, and to avoid responsibility for a number of unfair commercial practices including charging banned and hidden fees to tenants.
At this point, Flight voluntarily repaid his tenants who were owed their deposits or charged fees. But further investigation found more consumer offences, with Flight the person behind various companies and business names.
In January 2023, he pleaded guilty to four charges of misleading action, one of misleading omission and one of unfair commercial practice and was convicted of four consumer protection offences against his tenants between 2019 and 2020.
This resulted in a colossal fine of £37,000 – £12,000 in fines and costs of £25,000.
But, as we have seen before – these fines don’t stop these landlords continuing to rent out their properties. Flight now lives on a luxury yacht called Miss Conduct in Bristol Harbour, and has now set his sights on short term lets, some of which cost almost £600 per night.
But while he’s taken on a new form of income, he doesn’t appear to have entirely mended his ways. Many of his Airbnb guests have reported not receiving their security deposits back. Others have reported ‘aggressive’ agents who sent ‘sometimes threatening’ emails.
And remember those ‘admin costs’ Sarah’s letting agent warned her about? Flight is still using those with his Airbnb guests – £25 for a single phone call to the property maintenance line, and £15 to send one email.
One unlucky guest managed to wrack up £5,370 worth of damages and fines, which they refused to pay.
So why is Flight still allowed to rent properties? Bristol City Council explained that the offences he pleaded guilty to were not Banning Order offences under the Housing and Planning Act 2016.
What can landlords learn from this failure?
We share these failures because they’re an opportunity to learn from the mistakes of others. Now, pretty much NO ONE reading this or watching the accompanying video this would even consider fraud to grow their wealth, but let’s whizz through the rules and regulations around deposits just to make sure you’re ticking all the boxes:
- Make sure you’re protecting the deposits in one of 3 government approved schemes – MyDeposits, Deposit Protection Service and Tenancy Deposit Scheme
- Protect the deposit within 30 days of receipt
- Give your tenant the prescribed information and proof of protection
Skipping any of these steps would be a breach of your responsibilities and put you at risk of fines, as well as potentially delaying an eviction, should you need to evict at any point.
Another lesson we can learn from Flight’s failure is how you deal with tenants. Ultimately, this is your business, but your business is your tenant’s home, so on both counts it pays to deal with your tenant with empathy and professionalism:
- Keep the lines of communication open
- Be open to discussion and feedback, keep interactions respectful
- Work with your tenant to make things work between you
