A landlady was on Monday fined by a city magistrate after she confessed to removing the electricity meter at the home of her tenant.
Sonia Sankar, 57, appeared virtually before Principal Magistrate Sherdel Isaacs-Marcus at the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court and was fined $10,000 after she pleaded guilty with explanation to a charge that she acted contrary to the Landlord and Tenants Act. The hearing was conducted virtually from the Brickdam Police Station Zoom hub.
It is alleged that on June 2, at Middle Road, La Penitence, Georgetown, while being the landlady of the home where Kimberly Frank was renting, she removed the electricity from her apartment without Frank’s consent.
The police prosecutor told the court that on the day in question at 1:00 pm, Frank arrived home and noticed her electricity was not on. She checked the apartment and discovered that the meter was missing. She then made a report at the Ruimveldt Police Station. Sankar was subsequently contacted and she told the police that she had the meter removed.
In her explanation, she told the court that the woman had owed her rent for June, 2021. She said that on the day in question, she had gone to pay the Guyana Power and Light bill and needed the rent money to make the payment. She said she called the woman who responded that she didn’t have the money and cursed at her. She said that she was frustrated when she had the meter removed but has since regretted it because the meter also provided electricity for her home.
Frank told the court that she was on vacation in May and when she returned to the home she discovered that the meter was gone and all the meat in the freezer had spoiled. She said that the woman indeed asked her for June’s rent but she informed her that she did not have it. The Principal Magistrate then told Frank that she would need to pay her landlady the rent.
