Landlord makes £300k mistake

Waltham Forest landlord, William Lao has described his five year battle with local authorities as 'a huge mistake' after been told to pay a total of £301,258 in legal costs and fines.

Lao, a landlord with a rental portfolio of sixteen properties around Leyton had added a number of unauthorised extensions and conversions of houses into flats without seeking any planning permission.

The landlord refused to respond to a series of Planning Enforcement Notices issued by the council and failed to return the properties back to their original state .

The sum of the costs were made up from £217,758 to repay in illegal earnings, £73,500 for seven Enforcement Notices that were ignored, £3,000 for breaches in Houses in Multiple Occupation regulations and £500 for a failure to disclose ownership.

The landlord now has six months to pay or will be sentenced to 30 months in jail.

All unauthorised building work will now be forcibly undone and demolished....

I agree Mr Lao, this was a rather 'huge mistake'.

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