A landlord has to pay more than £15,000 after pleading guilty to a number of fire safety and housing offences.
Housing and fire safety officers visited the four-storey semi-detached house converted into nine flats in Bolton. A notice was issued prohibiting residents living in the upper floors but fire officers fitted battery operated smoke detectors as a temporary measure so that the residents on the ground-floor flats could remain.
Although there was a fire alarm fitted, the original control panel had been replaced with one that was not compatible and there were missing detectors outside some of the flats. Residents reported that smoke detectors in their flats had been covered up with blanking caps normally used by builders. Self-closing devices had been removed from a number of the fire doors and some of the doors were ill-fitting.
Raviv Dozetas of Bury New Road, Salford pleaded guilty to all five breaches of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 and one offence under the Housing Act 2004 at Bolton magistrates' court on 18 May.