A common theme – Property turned into flats collecting the highest housing benefit rent as self-contained accommodation whilst claiming that the property is a HMO, which would attract a much lower housing benefit rate, in order to avoid planning regs.
3 Defendants guilty of failing to comply with an Enforcement Notice requiring them to cease the use of a property as flats following evidence from Nigel Wicks.
LPA entitled to recover costs following aborted s178 direct action from land owner and the merits of employing specialists such as Enforcement Services.
The court accepts the measurements undertaken by Mr. Wicks, as it is the volume of the new hoarding, its movement forward from the flank wall and the additional steel supports that are clearly demonstrated by the photographs in Exhibit 4 at pages numbered 32, 134, 235 and 236 that is a three fold increase on the Trivision hoarding volume
“Mr. Wicks has made a witness statement in which he sets out the Claimant’s case most cogently….It all seems perfectly reasonable to me and accordingly I give Judgment for the Claimant”