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Landlord evicted tenants illegally after agent served proper notice
Original Author: Rosalind Renshaw
A landlord who illegally evicted a family of nine has been fined £700.
He has also been ordered to pay costs of £1,500 and a victim surcharge of £70 after he took matters into his own hands and ignored the two-month notice his agent had given the tenants.
When they were out, Mirsad Solakovic, of Birmingham, changed the locks.
Solakovic, 37, was found guilty of unlawfully evicting the family in contravention of Section 1(2) of The Protection from Eviction Act 1977, on October 2, 2013.
Solakovic had asked his tenants to leave without serving the appropriate notice. Birmingham City Council wrote to the agent who was managing the property at the time outlining the legal procedure to be followed to obtain possession.
Although the agent had served a new notice giving the tenant two months to leave, Solakovic decided to act.
When one of the sons living at the property came home later that day he discovered the locks had been changed and called the police.
Solakovic refused to let the tenants back in, allowing just one family member to enter and retrieve a few belongings.
He then crammed the rest into the garage.
Birmingham City Council’s cabinet member for neighbourhood management and homes, Cllr John Cotton, said: “When relationships break down between tenants and landlords there are strict legal processes that have to be followed.
“The prosecution sends out a clear message that we will not tolerate this behaviour and will pursue those landlords who operate outside the law.”
