Landlord made more than £2,500 every month from renting out flat he didn’t own

By Hannah Neary, Local Democracy Reporter

A rogue landlord made more than £2,500 a month from renting out a flat he didn’t even own.

Kensington and Chelsea council has taken back the one-bedroomed flat in Ladbroke Grove after the man was caught renting it out to three tenants while he pretended to own the property.

The local authority said the man was taking in £850 a month from each of the subtenants, and that he hadn’t lived at the council-owned flat for several years.

The unnamed man was raking in £2,550 a month but was caught after making a right to buy application to acquire the property.

If his illegal sublet hadn’t been uncovered, he would have been able to buy a property worth more than £300,000 with a £100,000 discount, a council spokesman said.

The authority also recovered three other properties after checking housing applications and finding people who tried to take over from their relatives were not eligible to do so.

The council’s deputy leader and lead member for housing Kim Taylor-Smith said: “With a chronic shortage of housing across London, we need to make sure it’s going to those who are genuinely eligible and in need of a home.

“Our team checks all applications and acts on intelligence and when fraudulent applications are discovered, we act quickly to recover those properties and give them to individuals and families on our housing waiting list.

“I would urge anyone with information on tenancy fraud, or who suspects a property is being illegally sublet, to report what they know as soon as possible.”

Pictured top: Kensington Town Hall (Picture: Hannah Neary)