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Companies behind HMO involved in fatal fire fined £120,000
The landlord, management agency and agents of an unlicensed house in multiple occupation (HMO) in Southall that was the scene of a fatal fire have been handed a £120,000 fine.
Ealing Council said it had issued the maximum possible financial penalty under its civil powers of £30,000 each to agents Narinder and Joginder Singh, their company Homeseekers and the landlord after they failed to licence the property as an HMO.
Serious safety failings at the home on Saxon Road, in west London, led to the death of a 17-year-old girl who suffered fatal injuries in the fire in January 2019.
The property, built as a three-bedroom semi-detached house but illegally converted into a five-bedroom HMO, was home to 10 people at the time of the fire, including a family of five who were all sleeping in one room.
After the fire, an assessment of the building by council officers found that the house lacked even basic fire safety measures, with no fire alarm or fire doors, no smoke seals on the doors and no emergency lighting.
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This meant smoke from the fire spread rapidly through the house without triggering a warning for the occupants, causing them to suffer the effects of smoke inhalation.
As well as causing the death of the girl, the smoke also seriously injured her mother, who remains hospitalised. Two other children were also seriously injured but have since recovered.
Had the owner and agents applied for the council license they needed to let the home as an HMO, the council would have required them to immediately install basic fire safety measures such as smoke alarms, Ealing Council said.
After consultation between the council and the London Fire Brigade, they would also have been served with a formal enforcement notice requiring them to install an automatic fire detection system in the building.
Ealing found that all three parties responsible for the building were culpable and negligent. The landlord paid the fine, meaning he now cannot be named, but the other parties initially appealed.
At a residential property tribunal in December, the panel found that “as has been demonstrated here, neglect can be every bit as harmful as actively bad management” and upheld all three maximum penalties. The deadline for appealing against this ruling has now passed.
Joanna Camadoo-Rothwell, Ealing Council’s lead member for community safety and inclusion, said: “Our rental property licensing process would have immediately identified that this building was ill-equipped to house people.
“A family has been torn apart due to the negligence of this landlord and his agents; the fire would have been contained and minimised if proper procedures had been followed. The harm that arose stemmed directly from the owner and agent’s failure to licence the property, which they deliberately avoided doing because they knew the house was unfit.”
She added that the council would continue to pursue rogue landlords and agents to the fullest extent of the law.
The family is now housed in temporary accommodation by the council.
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