A Salford man has been forced to pay £25,500 after the council discovered an unlicensed HMO above his shop with serious fire safety failings.
Waseem Abbas, owner of Touchlink Mobiles, was found to have six people living in the flat above his shop on 5 King Edward Building, Bury Old Road.
Mr Abbas has been ordered to pay a combined £25,500 penalty, £7,500 for running the premises without a licence and £18,000 for fire safety failing.
Proceedings started after he reached out to Salford City Council for help with a bed bug and rodent infestation at the property.
A residential property tribunal report said: “Officers found six people at the property each of whom gave a witness statement to the effect that they were living at the property; and identified deficiencies relating to fire safety/prevention e.g. no safe escape route; no
thumb lock on exit door; no kitchen door; no functioning/adequate fire alarm safety
for the type of accommodation; no fire doors considered as breaches of “utmost
gravity” of the Management Regulations, exacerbated by the fact that the Property is
above ground level.”
The property was first rented in 2003, and Mr Abbas claimed that he was told, “that other people at the property were just friends staying overnight and/or meeting at the property for group study.”
Mr Abbas also said that at this he was struggling financially, suffering from some medical issues as well as dealing with the death of his father in Pakistan and the birth of his first child.
The report states that he “consistently denied” that the property was operating as an HMO.
Mr Abbas claimed that he visited the property at some point before calling the council to deliver pest spray and on that occasion he did not enter any of the living spaces but he could see that the property was not being kept clean and that there was rubbish left outside.
The tribunal documents noted that a piece of paper was found in the kitchen of the property containing the names of seven people. Mr Abbas told the tribunal that he “did not know what it was” and had not seen it before.
According to tribunal documents, the council was found to be “satisfied that it has properly applied its policy in calculating the financial penalty for the licensing offence.”
The financial penalties are payable within 28 days of the order.
Mr Abbas and Salford City Council were contacted for comment.
