Bristol landlord loses appeal over ban from letting properties

Bristol City Council’s Private Housing team has successfully defended an appeal from a landlord who was banned from letting properties after “repeatedly failing to meet the required standards”.

The landlord’s appeal was dismissed on all grounds, and it was concluded that the original tribunal had “correctly assessed the seriousness of the offences for which she had been convicted”.

Outlining the background to the case in Knapp v Bristol CC [2023] UKUT 118 (LC) Martin Rodger KC, Deputy Chamber President, said that Ms Knapp had been a landlord in Bristol for more than 30 years, and owned a portfolio of 29 properties held for residential letting.

He added: “She has specialised in letting to tenants who might otherwise find it difficult to obtain private rented accommodation, including homeless, vulnerable or marginalised individuals.”

Eighteen of the landlord’s properties were required to be licensed as HMOs under Part 2 of the Housing Act 2004 (the 2004 Act), said the judge.

It was revealed that for a number of years, Bristol City Council has been concerned about the quality of Ms Knapp’s management of her portfolio.

The council’s concerns led it to take “progressively more serious enforcement action” against the appellant in 2020 and 2021, said the judge.

He added: “The imposition of a financial penalty for licensing offences was followed by the service of notices of intention to refuse or revoke the appellant’s HMO licences and then by successful prosecutions for management and licensing offences”.

On 19 April 2021, Ms Knapp pleaded guilty and was convicted of a total of eight banning order offences in relation to three of her properties. These included “fire safety issues as well as poor conditions witnessed in the communal areas of the properties”, said the council.

She was fined £22,000 for those offences in April 2021.

Bristol then applied for a banning order to the First-tier Tribunal (FTT), which, in August 2022, imposed a five-year ban.

The order banned the landlord from letting housing, engaging in letting agency work, and engaging in property management work; giving her six-months to sort out the management of her existing tenants.

The appellant was granted permission to appeal on six grounds, not all of which were pursued at the hearing, said Martin Rodger KC.

He added: “The most important of those grounds concerned the requirement in section 16(4)(a), 2016 Act, that in deciding whether to make a banning order against a person, and what order to make, the FTT must consider the seriousness of the offence of which the person has been convicted.”

Ms Knapp submitted that the FTT had “not complied with this requirement but instead had referred simply to the fine imposed by the magistrates (which it assessed as being at the high end of the available range of sanctions) and took that as a measure of the seriousness of the offence”, said the judge.

The appellant argued that the FTT should have disregarded the fine and made “an assessment of its own of the seriousness of the offence based on the evidence presented to it.”

Further, the appellant argued that the ban on “letting housing” contemplated by section 14(1) of the Housing and Planning Act 2016 was “no more than a prohibition on the act of letting itself and is not a prohibition on being a landlord, and that it therefore extends only to the creation of new tenancies and not to the continuation of existing relationships”.

Martin Rodger KC noted that the appellant’s other grounds of appeal suggested “a miscellaneous catalogue of errors by the FTT”.

Analysing the first ground of appeal, the judge concluded: “I reject both the proposition that the FTT were not entitled to have regard to the fines imposed by the magistrates, and the proposition that, in doing so, the FTT in this case impermissibly sub-contracted the necessary consideration of the seriousness of the offences to the magistrates.”

On the second issue, counsel for the appellant submitted that the FTT had no power to ban the appellant from continuing to manage properties which she had previously let and where the tenancies or licences were continuing.

“He contended that section 14(1)(a), 2016 Act empowers the FTT to ban the granting of any new tenancy or licence but not to ban a person from being a landlord under an existing tenancy”, said the judge.

The judge went on to highlight two “substantial objections” to counsel's argument:

1. The effect of a banning order is dealt with in section 17 in terms which make it clear that it may have immediate effect in relation to existing tenancies. It is for that reason that a power to make exceptions is provided, including exceptions “to deal with cases where there are existing tenancies, and the landlord does not have the power to bring them to an immediate end” (section 17(4)(a)).
2. [Counsel for the appellant] acknowledged, as a matter of language a ban on “letting housing” is capable of including a prohibition on being a landlord in respect of any tenancy, whether current at the time of the ban or not.

It was concluded that the FTT had correctly assessed the seriousness of the offences for which Ms Knapp had been convicted, including by reference to its own experience, and by reference to the sentences imposed by the magistrates’ court.

The FTT had also correctly concluded that banning orders were capable of applying to existing tenancies, rather than applying only to the initial act of granting a tenancy, it was found.

Martin Rodger KC described the remaining grounds of appeal as “weak”, and dismissed the appeal on all grounds.

Cllr Tom Renhard, Bristol's Cabinet Member for Housing Delivery and Homes, said: “This is an important case for Bristol City Council, and the first of its kind in the country. Having a safe and secure roof over our heads is key to ensuring we all have the best possible opportunity to live a happy and healthy life but, unfortunately, many renters still live in fear of spiralling costs, poor quality housing, and unfair evictions. 

“We are working hard to make sure that people living in private rented accommodation have adequate protections and decent living standards. We will take action to crack down on criminal landlords who do not meet the legal requirements for a safe and secure living environment.”

Additionally, the council revealed that this is the third Banning Order the council’s ‘Rogue Landlord Team’ had applied for and been granted.

Lottie Winson