Crown Court makes £900k confiscation order over planning enforcement breaches

The six-year-long case centred around extensions that were completed without planning permission to another property the family owns.

Planning enforcement notices were first served in August 2019 for the work, which the property owners failed to adhere to as late as 2025.

One of the notices was to stop the use of an outbuilding at the back of the property as a self-contained flat.

The other was to stop the use of the first and second floors as four self-contained flats, including the instruction to remove the kitchen and bathroom facilities.

An appeal was made against one of the notices, which was rejected by the Planning Inspectorate, and the family was told to put the property back to how it was before the work had been done by October 2020.

Council officers later visited the property in April 2022 to find the notices still had not been complied with.

The four flats and outbuilding were being let to tenants, and the defendants had continued to profit from the conversions and receive rental income.

The council said that all four property owners were summoned to court in January 2023, but they failed to appear.

They pleaded guilty to failing to comply with the requirements of both the enforcement notices at a hearing in June that year, but attempts to change their pleas and failing to show up to hearings caused more delays.

During another enforcement visit in July 2025, officers found that the owners had still not complied with the council’s enforcement notices.

Isleworth Crown Court imposed a confiscation order of £900,217 in October 2025 on Jagdishbhai and Minaxiben Patel.

They were also issued a £4,500 fine each, totalling £9,000, and ordered to pay legal costs of £8,000 each, and victim surcharges of £181 each.

Siblings, Alpesh and Parul Patel, were registered owners of the property, but the court agreed they were less culpable for the failure to comply with the notices, and were each ordered to pay a victim surcharge of £21 and costs of £2,000.

Cllr Shital Manro, Ealing’s cabinet member for good growth and new homes, said: “The outcome of this prosecution sends a clear message that we will not tolerate illegal property conversions that undermine our planning system and put residents at risk. We will use every legal tool available to us to ensure offenders who wilfully ignore the rules are financially punished."

Adam Carey