'He's a crook': how Gary Ata became Sheffield's most infamous landlord

Who is Sheffield’s worst landlord? There might be a few claimants to that title. Nilendu Das, the man whose Crookes properties were in such a state that he received the longest letting ban in the UK. And the city’s largest landlord, Sheffield City Council, hasn’t exactly covered itself with glory, referring itself to the regulator in 2023 over hundreds of overdue gas safety checks.

But over the last four years, I’ve become slightly obsessed with another contender: Gary Ata.

Ata plays an oversized role in Sheffield. His most prominent role is as the owner of the Old Town Hall, one of our city’s most important heritage buildings, which has continued to slowly fall apart on his watch. But his influence stretches much wider than that. He’s developed at least five major housing schemes from the city centre to Kelham, and roughly 500 people live in his Sheffield properties. 

Their feedback, it’s fair to say, is universally negative. (“Better to go and stay in a jail,” reads one comment on Reddit.) And if you think what his tenants have to say about him is bad, just talk to his former business partners. “He’s a crook”, is one of the more charitable comments I’m given. The council's view is no more charitable, calling him a "rogue landlord" in 2023.

But he’s also something of a phantom. There’s only one known photo of Ata floating around on the internet, and — other than popping up as an expert estate agent in a 2022 episode of Homes under the Hammer — he keeps a low media profile. Various attempts to get in touch all founder. For a man whose influence on the city is so visible, he’s remarkably hard to find. I put several queries to Ata while investigating for this piece — but received no response.

The sense of mystery only deepens when you start poking around in the digital records of his business empire, which contains 33 different companies. I was hoping to get a few simple answers to questions about how his business works. But trying to work out exactly what’s going on is like trying to plait fog, and the paper trail quickly runs out. Pinning Ata down — and getting some answers out of him — is going to be harder than I thought.