A head tenant has been jailed for 16 weeks after he changed the locks on a property that was illegally sublet to 35 men.
Ilie Florin Dragusin evicted the men and removed their belongings from a converted three-bedroom semi-detached house.
Brent council officers found the 35 tenants to be living in substandard conditions in an unlicensed HMO in September last year.
Dragusin was one of three head tenants at the property in Kingsbury.
Councillor Eleanor Southwood, the council cabinet member with responsibility for housing and welfare reform, said,
“This custodial sentence sends a strong message to anyone thinking that they can get away with illegally evicting their tenants. The punishment is prison. We will help people in the private rented sector who are suffering from the actions of rogue landlords, sub-letters and agents.”
Dragusin had previously ignored four sets of warnings by enforcement officers not to change the locks on the property.
