A LANDLORD has been fined for allowing a home badly in need of repairs to be rented out.

Joanne Parker, aged 41, was fined £4,000 by Bolton magistrates for failing to carry out the repairs at the house in Ladyshore Road, Little Lever.

Bolton Council had prosecuted Parker, of Hartley Hall, Carrick-on-Shannon, Ireland, after the work was not carried out.

Officers inspected the property following a complaint in January last year.

They found dangerous electrical installations, no gas safety record, a broken window opener and unsafe flooring, amounting to breaches in housing legislation.

Parker was sent a letter telling her to raise standards and to remove the hazards. She declined to carry out the work.

Officers then served her an improvement notice, but when inspectors paid a visit in May they found no action had been taken.

Parker, who did not attended the court hearing, was found guilty in her absence of failing to comply with requirements of an improvement notice.

She was ordered to pay a £4,000 fine, pay £587 costs and a £100 victim surcharge.

The case comes after council bosses received a cash injection of £56,000 from the government to tackle rogue landlords.

Cllr Nick Peel, the council’s cabinet member for environmental services, said: “It is important to crack down on landlords like this.

“There are national standards to which those privately rented houses need to be kept up to, including health and safety issues.

“Landlords do have legal obligations to fulfil. The council will enforce those obligations when it’s found they are not being complied with.

“Ms Parker still has to bring the house up to the required standard. It will continue to be monitored.”