Rogue landlord fined £40,000 after illegally turning a modest semi-detached home into nine bedroom apartment block

A rogue landlord has been fined more than £40,000 after illegally turning a modest semi-detached home into an apartment block - with nine bedrooms.

Muhammad Sohaib Anwar was ordered to pay £41,500 for breaking planning laws for cramming 14 people into his three-bed property - and raking in an estimated £3,600-a-month in rent.

Anwar split the first floor of the family home, in Acton, west London, into separate sections and installed an extra kitchen, despite failing to get permission to turn the building into a House of Multiple Occupation.

He charged up to £400-a-month to rent each room, and investigators from Ealing Council discovered 14 people living in the house, and slapped him with a notice ordering him to return the house into a single-family home.

Anwar was ordered to pay a confiscation order of £32,000 along with a £2,500 fine and £7,000 in costs by the judge at Isleworth Crown Court.

Anwar was initially granted planning permission to build an extension to his house which would have added just one extra bedroom.

Instead, Anwar created a self-contained three-bedroom flat, and then installed a number of partition walls throughout the property to make nine separate sleeping rooms.