King Charles has stripped a Hounslow landlord of his OBE after the Cabinet Office ruled his conduct had brought the honours system into disrepute. Nirpaul Riat lost the honour following a 2023 court case in which judges at Isleworth Crown Court ordered him to pay £300,000 for renting out illegally converted homes in what the court heard were terrible conditions.
The forfeiture, confirmed on 20 October, ends a three-year campaign by Hounslow Council, which submitted a formal request for removal after securing the conviction. Riat received the OBE in 2011 for services to charity and to the Punjabi people after raising almost £50,000 for the air ambulance service, Crime Stoppers and Great Ormond Street Hospital.
Rogue operators rarely face consequences beyond the courtroom, which is why this decision carries weight for every compliant landlord watching councils test the limits of their powers. With the Renters Rights Act handing local authorities wider inspection and enforcement tools, Hounslow has shown it will pursue landlords through every channel available, years after the original offences were committed.
Two decades of illegal conversions ended in £300,000 penalty
Judges penalised Riat after what the court described as two decades of managing illegally converted houses across the west London borough. His breaches included converting one property into eight flats and renting out an outbuilding in Osterley to vulnerable tenants.
The premises were damp and squalid, suffering from mould and water leaks. Inspectors also found limited natural light, erratic heating and an absence of hot water in homes where vulnerable people were forced to live in conditions the court called terrible.
The £300,000 penalty was one of the largest financial punishments ever handed to a property owner in the borough. It was not Riat’s first offence: he had already been fined £20,000 in 2009 for converting a property in Hanworth into flats without planning permission. Other councils have shown similar resolve against persistent offenders, as the Leeds appeal which left one landlord with a higher £10,500 fine demonstrated.
Council pressed Whitehall to remove the honour
Tom Bruce, deputy leader of Hounslow Council, said the decision sent a clear message that profiting from unacceptable living conditions would not be tolerated. “Mr Riat allowed his tenants to live in woeful conditions while growing rich at their expense. That is why Hounslow Council pursued the case and why such a significant fine was imposed,” he told the Evening Standard.
Bruce said he had publicly called for Riat to lose the honour at the time of the conviction, and confirmed the council then submitted a formal request to Whitehall. “The stripping of his OBE, along with the original fine, sends a clear message: exploiting tenants and profiting from unacceptable living conditions is not something that will be tolerated in Hounslow,” he said.
At the time of the 2023 penalty, Bruce had said: “While these residents were left to languish in these appalling conditions, Nirpaul grew rich at their expense.” The Cabinet Office has now confirmed the forfeiture on the grounds that Riat’s conduct brought the honours system into disrepute.
This follows Landlord Knowledge’s exclusive FOI investigation into council fine collection, which revealed English councils had issued £5.2m in landlord penalties while six authorities failed to disclose their totals at all. The Riat case shows enforcement no longer stops at the fine itself. Councils are willing to chase reputational sanctions too, and Hounslow’s three-year pursuit of the forfeiture underlines how seriously some boroughs now treat repeat offenders. Combined with the FOI findings, the picture is of patchy but intensifying pressure: where councils choose to act, they act hard.
What this means for landlords
- If you own converted flats or outbuildings: check planning permission and building control sign-off for every unit now, before a council does it for you
- Watch for: wider council inspection powers under the Renters Rights Act, plus the national landlord database making repeat offenders easier to track across borough boundaries
- Bottom line: fines are only the start – councils can pursue costs, bans and now even honours forfeiture against landlords who house tenants in squalid conditions
Editor’s view
Losing an OBE hurts in a way a fine never quite manages. Riat kept his honour for 12 years after his first conviction, which tells its own story about how slowly the system moves. But Hounslow refused to let it drop, and that persistence is the real lesson. Compliant landlords have nothing to fear here. The target is the operator who knew exactly what he was doing for 20 years.
Author: Editorial Team – UK landlord & buy-to-let news, policy, and finance
Published: 22 October 2026
Sources: Cabinet Office, Hounslow Council, Isleworth Crown Court
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