Court of Appeal upholds £330,000 fines and £140k costs orders against landlords for 2010 planning breach

In Salem & Anor, R. v [2025] EWCA Crim 1602, Lord Justice Fraser, Mr Justice Constable, and Her Honour Judge Leigh also found that the costs orders made against the appellants amounting to more than £140k also “remain undisturbed”.

Joel Salem, of Highview Gardens, Finchley and Judith Veronique Robinson-Dadoun were ordered to pay the fines and costs by a Crown Court in light of the planning breaches for around seven years.

The 2010 enforcement notice was issued after the council found that the property owners had breached planning permission for a building they owned by dividing it into seven flats rather than the four permitted.

It required the landlords to comply by 2011, but the breach continued until 2018, according to the Court of Appeal’s judgment.

The landlords were later found guilty in 2020 by a magistrates’ court under section 179(2) of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990.

In September 2023, a Crown Court judge ordered Salem to pay a confiscation order of £1 and ordered Robinson-Dadoun to pay a confiscation order of £16,696.

Then in February 2024, the same court ordered Salem to pay a fine of £262,500 and to pay £185,258 towards the council’s prosecution costs.

On the same day and before the same judge, Robinson-Dadoun was ordered to pay a fine of £70,000. She was also ordered to pay £61,752 for the council’s costs.

In his decisions, the sentencing judge noted that new tenancy agreements continued to be signed for the flats even after the enforcement notice was issued.

He also found that the appellants had provided them with "incomplete" financial records offering an "opaque presentation of a highly complex web of financial dealings".

The appellants advanced six grounds at the Court of Appeal, arguing broadly that the fine and costs, both separately and cumulatively, were manifestly excessive.

The Court of Appeal agreed to hear grounds one and four, refusing the remaining grounds.

Ground one argued that the Crown Court's sentencing powers "were limited to those of the magistrates' court for part of the offending period".

Ground four meanwhile contended that the Crown Court judge erred when he decided that the applicants should pay the costs incurred by the prosecution in the confiscation proceedings, "because these proceedings were determined largely in accordance with what the Applicants had maintained from the outset".

"In any event, it was wrong to conclude that the Applicants had the means to pay costs in the sum he ordered," the ground added.

Both grounds of appeal were ultimately dismissed by the Court of Appeal justices, who concluded that the fines and costs orders imposed on each of the appellants "remain undisturbed".

Setting out their reasoning on ground one, the judges said they considered that all the circumstances of the case added to the appellants' attempts to hide their assets.

The circumstances highlighted by the judges included “the length of time over which the enforcement notice was ignored, the way the appellants behaved in delaying matters whilst entering into new tenancy agreements and repeating the highly culpable conduct, the very high level of benefit enjoyed as a result”.

The judgment added: "The powers of the Crown Court were not limited to the powers of the Magistrates' Court as the matter was committed to the Crown Court for consideration of confiscation and sentence, and would have been committed to the Crown Court for sentence in any event.

"We are not persuaded that the fines imposed were manifestly excessive as a matter of fairness, which is part of ground 1. In all those circumstances, we dismiss Ground 1."

On ground four, the judges said it was "somewhat misplaced to submit, as the appellants do, that the prosecution 'did not succeed'".

The judgment continued: "Managing to keep from the prosecution the true state of their financial affairs cannot be properly described as the appellants' succeeding. When looked at in overall terms, the prosecution was successful.

"Although a nominal confiscation order was made in respect of Salem, and a modest one in respect of Robinson-Dadoun, the reason for this was the appellants' behaviour."

The judges said that the true position about the extent of the financial means of both appellants was not known about at the date of making the confiscation order.

"It was by the time of the sentencing exercise far clearer to the court that both of the appellants were of significant means and were trying to hide that from the court," the judgement said.

"It was precisely because the position became factually far more clear that the court arrived at a conclusion, which in our judgment is unimpeachable, that they were each of significant financial means.

"This was part of the exercise leading to the fines. Secondly, the extent of wasted work on the confiscation proceedings was so great because of the way that the defendants obfuscated, delayed and prolonged the process for their own ends."

On ground four, the judges concluded: "The judge applied the correct legal principles and as a matter of principle he was entitled to make costs orders against both appellants.

"He then properly exercised his discretion on the facts as he found them to be, after a very detailed fact-finding exercise, including cross-examination.

"There is no prospect of the appellants overturning those factual findings, and the attempts to overturn the fines on appeal have failed.

"The costs orders that he made were those within the range of those reasonably available to him. The costs orders were not wrong in principle and the discretion was exercised correctly. This ground therefore fails."

Commenting on the decision, Cllr Adam Harrison, Cabinet Member for Planning and a Sustainable Camden, said: “This was a complex and long running planning enforcement case.

“The dismissal by the Court of Appeal has reiterated that we will not accept substandard accommodation and that we will always strongly pursue the breach of planning enforcement notices for as long as it takes.”

Adam Carey