A multi-millionaire property developer with a substantial Brixton portfolio has been prosecuted under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
Jerry Knight, director of Lexadon Property Group, was ordered to pay out more than £175,000 after renting out a building at 48 Trent Road, Brixton, as four flats without the proper planning permission.
Sentencing at Inner London Crown Court last month, Mr Recorder K King said that Knight “flagrantly pressed ahead and flouted the regulations.”
He ordered Lexadon Ltd to pay £143,134 that they made from renting out the property as flats, as well as a £13,000 fine and Lambeth’s £6,812 costs. Knight was also fined £13,000.
Knight claims there were mitigating circumstances in relation to the Trent Road property and that he already had planning permission for five flats but not four. He also says that an enforcement notice was sent to his old office – and that he never saw it.
He said: “Strictly speaking this needed a planning permission although of course I had the five flat permission as a fall back. An enforcement notice was issued and sent to a former registered office which we then never received. Therefore due to an administration error this was overlooked.”
He went on to tell The Brixton Bugle last week: “The confiscation order is the gross amount of rent received for the period that the property was unlawfully rented. No allowances are made for any expenses for the period.
“This is the first and only enforcement case against our company. We do consider ourselves responsible landlords and all our tenants live in safe environments. There are far more serious cases out there.”
According to the response to a FOI request submitted to Lambeth council, Knight’s company bought three Rushcroft Road mansion blocks from Lambeth council in January this year for a combined value of £7.5million, after shortlife tenants and squatters were evicted from the buildings.
Knight – previously listed in the Sunday Times Rich List as having an estimated wealth of £50million – began his career as a plumber before he began converting flats in Brixton and Clapham. He now has a huge property portfolio across the town centre.
Lexadon acquired the formerly squatted Clifton Mansions, Coldharbour Lane, from Lambeth council.
The firm also owns the Viaduct development and the former Angel pub, Coldharbour Lane, former Clapham Police Station, 435 Coldharbour Lane and many more properties locally. Another recent acquisition is the former Walton Lodge Laundry, next to Brixton Village.
Cllr Paul McGlone said income from developers like Jerry Knight was important for investment in “homes, schools, roads and pavements.” He added: “When developers play by the rules, we’re happy to work with them for the good of the borough… However, if developers press ahead without permission – as in this case – we will seek to take legal action against them.”
Lambeth council have so far failed to answer a question from The Brixton Blog and Bugle about how much money they have made from selling former council stock to Lexadon or Knight. They have also failed to reveal the process of how the properties were disposed of. We since found this information in a FOI response at whatdotheyknow.com, thanks to Adam Watt on Twitter.
God Help Brixton weekly people moving out being priced out, the poor mover to Luton, Milton Keynes, God knows where whole community’s gone, & soon Subway, Body Shop, & The Flower sellers, they should cater to all but that would mean Property Devlopers care they don’t, Money & Greed comes 1st,
Lived next door to no 48 in the 1940s and 50s! In those days it was occupied by one family. By contrast our house had three families with a shared bathroom and we had one cold tap in the flat. And so it was next door. Such was life in Trent Road in what would now be called an HMO. It was so cold the cat slept on top of the warmest thing in the kitchen -our Mullard valve radio! After 11 years on the waiting list LBC rehoused us and we escaped the clutches of the landlord. Bliss, hot water and a council landlord. Good old Lambeth
This guy is an absolute shark – avoid at all costs. I rented a place off him for a year which flooded through the floorboards and grew mould everywhere – after calling in environmental health due to him being unwilling to fix the problem he actually laughed at in my face when I said it was unacceptable seen as we were paying though the roof for the property. With 50 million in the bank why would he care. AVOID LEXADON!!
Why on earth is Knight/Lexadon allowed to have such a monopoly in Brixton? Surely a bad idea especially as none of their properties are going to cater for people on low incomes which Brixton and London are spitting out at a rate of knots. The greed is appalling. We don’t need even more bland expensive developments.
The utter hypocrisy is Lambeth Council bigging themselves up slapping some millionaire scumbag
on the wrist while they cosy up to the others and evict existing Brixton residents left right and centre. and cheerily help so-called social housing Associations to demolish blocks of their housing to build yuppie flats. That’s before accordingly evicted homeless disabled or families turns up at Housing to be told (in fancy words) to sod off….
Did somebody claim this is a Labour Council?
Sounds to me like splitting hairs if the developer had already permission for 5 flats at the property. Anyhow, these types of paperwork fines are probably just designed for the council to flex their muscles and show they have the pecking order, and not really worthy of note on a community new blog such as this.
I can’t see the difference between Lexadon and any other buy-to-let (except that Lexadon have specialised in Lambeth and also specialised in high standard accommodation for the high-end of the rental market).
What would the reaction be to Lexadon being involved in social housing? Maybe this should be on the radar for socially concerned Lambeth Residents – particularly if they are Labour supporters.
How about Milibean introducing legislation to force companies like Lexadon to cater to all social areas – not just yuppies/hipsters etc as so cordially loathed on the boards?
The utter hypocrisy here is that Lambeth has spent the past five years selling off so many Victorian houses which they had themselves illegally split into flats without planning permission. They had to be sold at knock down prices because lenders would not lend against them as three flats (because of the lack of permission and building regulations sign off) nor as houses (because they were illegaly arranged as flats). This limited the potential buyers to largely cash purchasers who could then step in, regularise the planning (usually fairly easily) and refurbish. Perversely, Lambeth sold plenty of these to Mr Knight. What jokers!
I should clarify that the sales of these properties were generally at public auctions and there is no suggestion that the sales were not open to all. Purchasers bought the properties fairly. However, Lambeth failed to maximise the value of the properties by sorting out their planning beaches prior to sale.