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A staggering 33 people were found sharing a small flat raided by housing officers in London’s East End.
The overcrowded flat was crammed with bunk beds and had mattresses strewn across the floor.
Tower Hamlets Council’s housing team also found a second flat where nine people, including two 10-year-olds, slept. Besides overcrowding, the apartment was dirty, infested with cockroaches and had poor drains.
Property owner Maqbool Khan admitted several housing offences at Thames Magistrates Court, including renting out an unlicensed house in multiple occupation.
He was fined £22,500 and ordered to pay £1,700 costs. Managing agent ARS Properties and director Mohammed Abul Miah were each fined £1,650 with £1,700 costs.
A landlord was fined £20,000 for running a dangerous unlicensed HMO in Great Yarmouth. Stanley Rodgers, 78, was facing magistrates in the town for the third time. In 2004, he was jailed for five years after two teenage boys died of carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty gas fire in one of his homes.
In 2015, Rodgers was convicted of letting an unlicensed HMO and a string of health and safety offences.
Now, he was convicted again of letting an unlicensed HMO which lacked fire safety precautions. On top of the fine, he must pay £5,500 costs and an outstanding £4,600 to the court.
Letting agent Jane Russell spent thousands of pounds collected in rent and tenant deposits on her business bills.
Insolvency experts investigating why her Ipswich, Suffolk, business collapsed in August 2018 uncovered tenant deposit payments of £12,000 were not recorded, and other deposits worth £20,000 were not safeguarded in a deposit scheme.
They also found that £7,000 collected in rent was not passed to landlords but spent on her business costs.
The loss to tenants and landlords was worked out as £28,000. Russell, 58, agreed to be banned as a director and from running a company for five years.