Why Was a Magistrate Landlord Fined For £93,000?
We’re back with another landlord fail – the biggest we’ve covered yet! It’s not quite hit six figures, but £93,000 is pretty close!
We’re looking at how a magistrate was stung with the biggest fine we’ve ever covered!
Who is the landlord?
It didn’t start off as a fail as the landlord in question, Ian Kendall, – a magistrate no less! – lawfully converted his detached garage into a dwelling on Burley Road in Bockhampton, near Christchurch.
All well and good – if you’ve got planning permission, then all the boxes are ticked…
Until February 2016 that is, when 65-year-old Kendall applied for permission to extend the conversion. This was rejected, as the extension was deemed to be too large. A new application for a smaller extension was made and approved.
But the smaller extension isn’t what was built…
When planning enforcement officers popped by in 2018, they found that Kendall built the larger extension that he had originally applied for. And it wasn’t just this property that Kendall had ignored the rules over. The officers also found that he had extended another property without any planning permission at all to create a separate dwelling.
One of the properties became a separate address, as it consisted of a bedroom, en-suite bathroom, kitchen and second front door.
Kendall submitted retrospective planning applications which were refused and Kendall was given 6 months to tear down the dwelling in November 2020, with another enforcement order for the removal of the second property given in December 2020. He did appeal, but the appeals were dismissed in August 2021.
At that point he was given ANOTHER six months to tear down the properties and guess what… HE DIDN’T.
Not only did he – a magistrate, remember! – ignore the demands of the court, he continued to rent out the illegal properties throughout this time. The court heard that he had made OVER £69k after creating the properties and the house and renting it out for a number of years. His defence conceded that while he HAD rented out two properties, which brought in more rent, ‘it was not to the tune of £69,000’.
What was the outcome?
So not only was Kendall on the hook for failing to get planning permission, Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council prosecuted him for failing to comply with their enforcement orders. When he went to court to face the charges, he pleaded guilty to both counts.
The council also filed a ‘proceeds of crime’ application to retrieve the tens of thousands of pounds that Kendall had accumulated while renting out the illegal properties.
As Kendall had benefited from this criminal conduct, he was awarded a confiscation order of £77,133.58, plus an additional £8,000 for the planning offences, AND costs to BCP Council of £7,877.84. Bringing us to a grand total of £93,011.42.
Kendall could have faced jail time if he didn’t pay up on the fine.
But why did Kendall who, as we have pointed out multiple times is a magistrate and therefore knows and (you would assume) respects the law, refuse to comply with the enforcement orders?
Well, he claimed at Southampton Crown Court that the tenancy agreements he had in place meant he was unable to pull down the properties (a Section 21 order would have come in handy here!). There was also the added complication of the pandemic (remember that?).
According to Kendall, the local authority took a year to grant permission for a temporary mobile home on the property to house the tenants whilst adjustments were being made. “I couldn’t avoid it,” he said, “as soon as I was in a position to knock it down, I did.”
Cllr Millie Earl, BCP Council’s portfolio holder for connected communities, said:
This is a fantastic result for the council and one which sends an important message. Our planning team works hard to enable people to improve their homes, but we all have a responsibility to make sure these improvements do not break the rules. Profiting from letting out unlawfully built dwellings is not only illegal, but unfair on tenants who have the right to live in a legal and safe home.
What can you learn?
If you’ve got a larger property that you could split into multiple flats or possibly some land that you could build on – I hope we’ve demonstrated how essential planning permission is!
So what steps do you need to take to develop or extend an existing property or build a new one?
- Find out if you need planning permission for the project. If you are building something new, making a major change like building an extension or changing the use of your building, you definitely need planning permission. If you are renovating the inside, you are unlikely to – but we’d heartily recommend you check before starting the project. Better to be safe than stung for £93k!
- Once you’ve established you need planning permission, you need to apply for it. You do this by contacting your LPA (Local Planning Authority through your local council). If you go ahead with the work BEFORE getting permission, you could be served an enforcement notice, like Ian Kendall, asking you to undo all the work you’ve done – an expensive job! So it’s well worth securing the permission BEFORE you start.
- Understand how long it can take. Getting planning permission is not an overnight job. A small scale project is usually decided on within 8wks, but larger or more complex projects take longer – up to 13 weeks. While this can feel frustrating when you’re keen to start – remember Ian Kendall and WAIT!
It’s worth remembering that you have to pay to submit your application for planning permission and this price is going up by 25% from 6th December 2023. Major schemes will be going up by 35%. This is a significant increase, so it’s worth factoring this into your budget when you’re planning.
