Landlord jailed after mum and daughter die in arson blaze

Landlord jailed after mum and daughter die in arson blaze

15:44 PM, 2nd April 2012, About 13 years ago 1

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HMO landlord Lookman Adeyemi has been jailed for four months and ordered to pay £10,000 costs after admitting flouting fire safety rules after a blaze that killed a 29 year old mum and her three year old daughter.

The unlicensed shared house in Milton Keynes was set alight in an arson attack against another tenant by his spurned lover, who is serving a prison sentence for manslaughter.

Adeyemi, 38, was told by Justice Lord Parmoor at Amersham Law Courts: “Although your failings did not cause the fire, the fact that one of your tenants and a child died is some indication of the risk run by your tenants, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“You were not dealing with rich people. These were people, some of whom did not have a job. You were dealing with a very vulnerable clientele.”

In another case, Landlord Javaid Kiyani pleaded guilty to failing to comply with an HMO improvement notice served by Sandwell Council, West Midlands.

Magistrates ordered him to pay £1,265 fines and costs after hearing the house had no hot water, no heating or electrics, no cooking facilities and was in a general dirty condition.

Kiyani has failed to negotiate a resolution with the council, who rehoused the tenants and issued an improvement notice.

The work is still outstanding and the council is considering whether to repair the property and bill the landlord for the work.

Elsewhere, husband and wife landlords Markus and Maureen Volkart Hill were fined a total of £5,000 and ordered to pay £320 costs by Swansea magistrates for letting an HMO to students without as licence.

Onyemauche ‘Fidelia’ Peel, 49, was ordered to carry out 150 hours of community service and pay costs of £2,000 when she appeared at Basildon Crown Court after she admitted seven offences relating to failing to maintain annual gas safety checks at several houses in the Essex town.

HMO owner Anthony Clark was fined £2,500 and ordered to pay £850 costs by magistrates in Skegness for failing to comply with an improvement notice on a property in Louth, Lincolnshire.

The council wanted him to carry out general repairs and to upgrade fire detection equipment and emergency lighting.

The property is let to a live-in landlord who rents rooms to tenants.


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Michael Holmes

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12:36 PM, 5th April 2012, About 13 years ago

I would be interested to know what this landlords 'failings' actually amounted to, were they physical, ie no fire precautions or merely beaureaucratic, ie. no HMO licence, or both?

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