West Yorkshire Lettings, a company operating out of Keighley in Yorkshire, has been hit with a £10,000 fine after being unable to meet a punishment dealt out to it by The Property Ombudsman.
The firm was initially fined £3,450 for a series of failures, with TPO saying they could find “no evidence” that repairs had been carried out on homes managed by WYL. The company also failed to inform a landlord of an offer received for a property, meaning that the landlord ended up with a tenant paying a reduced level of rent.
The failed repairs were serious in nature: In one of WYL's properties, their failure to fix a blocked toilet resulted in sewage seeping into a bath. In another, banisters were missing and mould was found growing. WYL's former director Mr Hameed Islam pleaded guilty to two charges against himself, and a further two on behalf of his company.
WYL then refused to pay this £3,450 fine, claiming they could not afford to. As a result, they have been expelled from TPO and fined £10,000. Gerry Fitzjohn, deputy chairman of the TPO board, said: “West Yorkshire Lettings had an obligation to pay the award, but refused to do so claiming that as a small business it could not afford it.
“The agency had also argued that repair work had been completed satisfactorily and had been ‘approved’ by a friend of the complainant. The Ombudsman could find no evidence to prove that was the case.
“We also noted that the agent had not provided proof that client money was being held in a separate account as required by the TPO Code of Practice. This presents potentially a very serious risk to those customers of that agent.
“As the agent had failed to pay the award and had breached other aspects of the TPO Code of Practice, the committee decided to expel it from membership.”
WYL have said that the employee responsible for these breaches has been expelled from the firm. However their attempts to appeal against the ruling were unsuccessful. A spokesperson for WYL now says that the firm is under different management, and that “We currently manage over 300 properties and all landlords are satisfied with our service.”
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