A landlord in Lambeth has been ordered to pay £30,600 to four tenants following a tribunal ruling over an unlicensed House in Multiple Occupation (HMO) with fire safety deficiencies.
Rebecca Elizabeth Fong operated a three-storey property on Camberwell New Road as an HMO between August 2023 and August 2024 without the required licence. The four tenants applied for a Rent Repayment Order (RRO) after discovering the property was unlicensed.
Fire safety concerns
Judge McKeown identified what she termed “serious deficiencies” in fire safety at the property. These included the absence of a fire blanket, only one fire door throughout the building, and a single battery-operated smoke alarm.
The tribunal also heard concerns about the front door, which required a key to unlock. “The front door locked with a key, meaning that, in the event of a fire, one of the occupants would have to locate the key and unlock the door,” Judge McKeown said, adding that leaving it unlocked “would have compromised their security”.
Judge McKeown noted that Ms Fong had made “little to no effort” to keep up to date with legal requirements, despite being a member of the National Residential Landlords Association (NRLA) and the increased focus on fire safety following the Grenfell Tower disaster in 2017.
Tribunal decision
According to MyLondon, Ms Fong accepted she had been managing an unlicensed HMO but contested the full repayment amount. Her representative argued she was not a “rogue landlord” and had “not buried her head in the sand”.
Two tenants were awarded £7,395 each, while two others received £7,905 each. Ms Fong was also ordered to pay £341 towards the tenants’ hearing fees.
Industry implications
The case highlights ongoing enforcement of HMO licensing requirements in London boroughs. A spokesperson for the NRLA stated the organisation expects members to follow its code of practice and that complaints about members’ conduct are investigated in line with its membership rules.
The ruling demonstrates that membership of professional landlord bodies does not exempt property owners from licensing requirements or protect against rent repayment orders when regulatory breaches occur.
