By James Simons-
A Kensal Rise Tenant has been fined close to £10,000 for subletting his property in Chamberlayne Mansions in Chamberlayne road.
Harry Lambert rented out the 1 bedroom property on the open market but got caught after gas leaking engineers were allowed in the property by the subtenant, and launched an investigation. He admitted subletting the property under the provision of social housing fraud.
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Harry Lambert was forced to pay £9,272 as pay back for the illegal profits he made through subletting and also ordered to pay the costs of bringing the case to court. Subletting is illegal in the U.K and indeed many parts of the world, except with the written permission of a landlord. The property illegally sublet by Kensal Rise tenant, Lambert belongs to Brent Council, and he had no permission from them to sublet it.
Subletting is different from lodging because the latter only gives the occupier restricted access to a room. A subtenant has exclusive access to a house and acts and lives as a tenant, despite not actually being one. Councils frown heavily on subletting because it means the correct tenant of the council property is not truly accountable for the property wilt someone else occupies it. It also means the original tenant is earning money from a property he has invested nothing into, and which does not belong to him, when he should be paying money for living there. In other words, he is reaping where he has not sown.
All councils or landlords want to have an accurate record of the people occupying their properties so that in any case of an emergency or criminal offence, it is easy to correctly identify in whose charge the property was in. The Kensal Rise tenant in this case did not foresee the circumstances under which he would be caught and made no provision for it either. He has now lost everything he made and more.