Ex-councillor forced to sell home for bad behaviour

A disgraced former councillor has been ordered by the courts to sell his home following claims by Hackney Council that his anti-social behaviour breached the terms of his lease.

Nihal Fernando had become a leaseholder of the east London authority when he bought his home under the right to buy. The council retained the freehold. Hackney Council brought the civil action against Fernando at Shoreditch County Court this month because it had received 147 complaints from neighbours that
prostitutes were visiting his property, a council spokesperson said.

Fernando agreed to leave his property immediately and sell it within eight weeks or hand it back to the council. He was also ordered to pay Hackney Council's £15,000 legal fee.

The spokesperson said the council was now preparing to return to court after neighbours claimed Fernando had already broken the court order by returning to his home.

The case was put together by the authority's arm's-length management organisation Hackney Homes and the police.

Alain Laing, cabinet member for neighbourhoods at Hackney Council, said the case sent a clear message to its leaseholders that they ‘cannot do what they want and get away with it'.

The spokesperson said Fernando's family had confirmed he would not be made homeless as he had another property to move in to.

Fernando was banned from becoming a councillor for two years in October 2005 by the Standards Board for England, an organisation that polices the conduct of elected members.

The decision followed an investigation by the board, which found that Fernando had ‘brought his office and authority into disrepute'.

He had claimed housing benefit and income support while drawing his full allowance as a councillor, the investigation found in October last year.

The former councillor was convicted and fined for three charges of benefit fraud at Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court in August 2004.

Abimbola Badejo, an associate at law firm Bircham Dyson Bell, said it was extremely rare for the courts to agree to an order that led to a leaseholder forfeiting a lease.

‘The court must have considered that it was a really bad case. It isn't something that the court takes lightly,' he said.