A LANDLORD has lost his appeal against a £10,000 fine for not having a licence for his house in multiple occupation.

Darren Mark Avey, 49, of Main Street, Holtby, had nine rooms for rent in a three-storey house in Paddock Chase, Heslington, charging up to £500 a month and collecting £3,600 on average in total per month, York magistrates heard in a case brought by City of York Council.

They fined him £10,000 plus £1,755 prosecution costs and a statutory surcharge after he admitted not having a landlord’s licence for the house.

He appealed to York Crown Court on the grounds that the magistrates hadn’t calculated the fine correctly, saying that it should be linked to what he was getting in rent and that he should have received a bigger reduction for pleading guilty.

But Recorder Gurdial Singh, sitting with two magistrates, rejected his appeal, saying court punishments are decided by the level of the offence, not a defendant’s profits, and that he had received the right discount. They ordered him to pay the prosecution’s £430 appeal costs.