53-year-old nursery assistant Mona Jetwani previously admitted 10 charges.

Runnymede Borough Council had received anonymous tip offs.

They claimed the bungalow was being illegally used as an unlicenced house of multiple occupancy.

Jetwani’s fine was initially set at £18,000 but was reduced by the judge due to her early guilty plea.

A Council spokesperson said: “Our first thought is for the people who found themselves living in these dangerous conditions; hopefully they have found better accommodation.

“This bungalow was in an appalling state. Our environmental health staff cannot remember another incident where a landlord had tried to profit to this extent. People’s lives have been put at risk because of these living conditions and a family home was turned into a cash cow.

“People running HMOs need to do so within the rules for good reason. This prosecution came about through anonymous tip offs and we would absolutely encourage anyone else who believes an HMO is being run dangerously or without a licence to contact us. It took over a year to deal with this case but we do not give up when safety is at risk. The majority of landlords operate their properties within the law, but the sentence in this case should be a wake up call to the few who do not, wherever in the borough they are.”

Speaking in court as she issued the fine, District Judge Cooper said: “These people were low income, English was not their first language, and they were vulnerable. I place culpability at its highest – though the Defendant may not have understood she needed a licence, she must have understood these rooms were very small, and the partitioning was inadequate. In my view the partitioning was put up in a hurry to allow [the defendant] to make the most gain from the small space. It was telling that in her PACE interview she didn’t refer to them as rooms but as “spaces”, which suggests she thought of them for the purposes of money-making… these were people who can’t get other accommodation. The fact that they can’t get accommodation does not mean that the accommodation provided to them should be of such a low standard.”