Council officers have repossessed ‘appalling and dangerous’ flats in Clapham, one of which had a tree growing through the wall.
Lambeth Council discovered a three-bedroomed house had been illegally converted into eight rooms, generating an estimated £40,000 a year in rent. The property, which is owned by the council, had no emergency exits, only one bath and toilet and an electric cable drilled through a tree branch.
Cllr Matthew Bennett, cabinet member for housing said: “The conditions the people in this illegal HMO were living in were truly appalling, and represented a genuine danger to life and limb.
‘It is shocking that someone can make money exploiting people by illegally renting out such dangerous accommodation with no regard for the safety of the people living there.’
The house was a ‘shortlife’ property, which meant it had been licensed to a housing association or cooperative in the 1970s on the understanding it would eventually be returned to the council.
