Newsroom Archive

Telford Magistrates yesterday heard Satinderjit Singh Thiara had a property in Churchway, Stirchley which had no heating, rotten window frames and a patio door that couldn’t be locked. 

In November last year, Telford & Wrekin Council received a complaint about the state of the house from tenants, a woman and her two young children, who later moved out.

A housing inspector visited the property and served an improvement notice on Mr. Singh Thiara, a director of family property letting business ‘First4Let (Telford) Ltd' of Haybridge Road, Hadley, ordering his company to provide a gas supply to the house, install central heating and change all the windows and patio door.

The Notice was served that same month but none of the required work was done.  The property was later advertised ‘to let’ which led to the Council issuing a prohibition order in April this year.

Despite written advice and warnings reminding Mr. Singh Thiara that under no circumstances should the property be let until the work was done, the following month new tenants moved in, one of whom was terminally ill. The only work that had been done to the house at that time was the painting over of the wooden window frames, the securing of a front door glazing and the sealing shut of the patio door meaning it couldn’t be opened at all.

Mr. Thiara was fined £800, reduced to £535 because he pleaded guilty to breaching the prohibition order by letting out the house to tenants when the required work hadn’t been done. He was also ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £53 and £500 towards the Council’s costs. 

Cllr Richard Overton, Telford & Wrekin Council’s Cabinet Member for Enforcement, said: “Telford & Wrekin Council is determined to ensure a level playing field for those landlords that provide a good standard of accommodation, as the vast majority of landlords do”

“We are unwilling to tolerate rogue landlords who flout the laws and provide substandard accommodation, and we will put the worst offenders in front of the courts.”