A family-owned property empire whose holdings include the former Fenwick department store building on London’s Bond Street has seen one of its subsidiaries named on the city’s rogue landlords register and hit with fines totalling £67,000.
The Lazari family have an estimated fortune of £2.5bn, placing them 72nd on the Sunday Times rich list. It is based on a property portfolio that includes some of the most luxurious addresses in central London as well as rental flats in the north of the city.
The Guardian has learned that last July a subsidiary of the property group Lazari Investments was fined seven times and named on the Greater London authority’s rogue landlord or agent database in relation to the condition of three flats above shops on Camden High Street.
Fines are imposed when landlords fail to comply with licensing conditions that require homes to be in “safe and good condition”. The penalties were all issued on 12 July, and the company, Lazari Properties 1, will remain on the the GLA database for 12 months from that date.
The flats are all houses in multiple occupation – typically low-cost rentals in which two or more households share amenities such as a kitchen or bathroom.
The GLA database was set up by the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, in 2017 to “name and shame” poor landlords or agents, and publicly lists property owners who have been fined more than £500 by a housing authority. It also allows tenants to report issues and people looking to rent to check a landlord’s track record.
Cypriot-born Christos Lazari built his property empire after making his fortune in the fashion business. He set up the Drendie Girl label, which sold in London’s high street stores during the 1970s, before using his profits made from the company to invest in London real estate, acquiring property in Mayfair, Baker Street and Tottenham Court Road.
Lazari’s children, Leonidas, Nicholas and Andrie, have continued to grow the business since his death in 2015. The family now own 3.25m sq ft (301,935 sq metres) of commercial real estate in central London, making them one of the capital’s biggest landlords.
The portfolio includes 63 New Bond Street, which was bought for £430m in 2022 and housed the luxury department store Fenwick from 1891 until February this year. Lazari Investments is planning to spend millions more redeveloping the site, with a mix of retail and office space.
All three Lazari siblings are directors of Lazari Properties 1, which owns the Camden flats. In one of the properties, situated above a pharmacy, the council found licence conditions had been breached five times, resulting in fines totalling nearly £40,000 including one for £17,500.
The company was fined £17,500 and £13,000 respectively for two properties above a restaurant and bar.
When asked by the Guardian, Camden council said it could not provide further detail on what its housing officers found. Council rules state a landlord must secure a licence for each property they own, and adhere to certain conditions including gas and safety checks, installing and maintaining smoke alarms and maintaining the property in reasonable repair.
The maximum fine is £30,000, with anything between £10,000 and £20,000 regarded as a “serious” breach, and those below that regarded “moderate”. Three of the fines relating to Lazari Properties 1 are in the serious category, while the other four would be labelled moderate.
A register of licensed houses in multiple occupation released by Camden this month showed the family owned 11 such properties across the borough.
A spokesperson for Lazari Investments said: “Once we were aware of the breaches, we commenced a process to rectify them with a particular focus to ensure no tenants were at risk.”
