Episode 10 Council House Crackdown

I'm Michelle Ackerley.

My parents both grew up on council estates

and as a family, we understand the difference

social housing can make to people's lives.

But across the UK, there's a chronic shortage

of council and housing association homes.

I know so many friends and so many people

that just literally don't have anywhere to live.

Adding to the crisis, some tenants are abusing the system,

holding on to properties they no longer need, or even worse -

unlawfully subletting them and coining in a small fortune.

Subletting social housing is wrong.

It's wrong. It's illegal and it's wrong.

So, every day, we'll be with the housing investigators

as they crack down on those rogue tenants...

-County Court bailiffs!

-DRILL WHIRS

..reclaim properties...

Anybody in?

..and give them to families in genuine need.

All of those keys are yours.

Aw, don't, cos you'll start me off again.

This is Council House Crackdown.

Our reporter, property expert Luke Doonan,

also grew up on a council estate, and for the last six months,

he's been working alongside dedicated housing investigators

who will stop at nothing

to track down every single tenant who's abusing the system.

-Today...

-Hello. It's Family Mosaic. Can you open the door, please?

..tracking down the tenant who's netting a grand a month

in a subletting scam.

It's unusual to find evidence so concrete.

The man who tried to buy his council flat totally gutted it,

then seemed to disappear.

When we got in there, the total shock.

The property was completely gutted out.

And on the trail of the high roller

who should've been living here,

but was actually living here.

So I served a notice to quit

and that was sent to Las Vegas and hand-delivered to this property.

Councils and housing associations have a number of weapons

in their armouries in the battle to clamp down on tenancy cheats.

The Prevention Of Social Housing Fraud Act gives councils powers

to requisition documents and see into bank accounts.

But another valuable tool in finding the information

to crack down on fraudsters is the internet.

Social media sites make it easy

for investigators to find out personal details,

such as where people live and work.

And in many cases,

tenancy cheats advertise

their social housing properties

to rent online,

which can provide investigators

with their big breakthrough.

Today, we're joining housing investigators

on the trail of a woman who's been brazenly advertising

her social housing property on the internet

and pocketing up to £1,000 a month.

We're not naming the tenant, because it's an ongoing investigation,

but this is where she lives -

a two-bedroom social housing property in Peckham, South London.

Or at least this is where she's supposed to be living.

In fact, she's been advertising her flat for rent

and charging £500 a month for each room.

All strictly illegal.

The flat is managed by housing association Family Mosaic,

where Carly Foley works as a tenancy fraud investigator.

She first got wind there was a possible fraud going on

when a neighbour contacted her.

She began to build up evidence that the tenant was subletting.

The case that I've been working on quite a lot,

we've got some good evidence that the property has been sublet.

Family Mosaic have 19 properties in this block of flats.

One of the first things Carly did

was to simply search the address online.

She was astonished to find an advert for the flat.

Literally I just googled the postcode of the block

and it came up with the website.

The advert here is for two double rooms.

It's a two-bedroom property,

so that indicates that the property has been sublet as a whole

as there are two rooms available to rent, so that would suggest

that our resident isn't actually residing at the property.

You can see that the rooms are available for £500 per month.

It also gives you who it's advertised by,

which is my tenant's name, her age and her nationality.

She's actually used her real name,

which is why it was so easily found on the internet searches.

Carly is shocked by how brazen this tenant has been.

It's unusual to find evidence so concrete.

Most people don't put all of the information onto the internet

as they know that that is a tool that is used by investigators.

Investigators often work in twos,

and today, Carly has enlisted the support of colleague Dominic Howard.

I'm going to be working with Dominic today.

Sometimes it's really nice to have two of us out on these jobs.

One person can be your eyes.

You know, it's good to have a look around the property

while the other person is engaging in conversation,

taking notes and things like that.

I need to tell you about today,

so shall we go and have a quick meeting?

Yeah, let's go into the meeting room.

They're planning to visit the flat.

Before heading out,

Carly brings Dominic up to speed with events.

So, today, I need to serve notice to quit and notice seeking possession.

I visited the property on the 15th of September.

I heard people inside speaking Spanish.

They refused to open the door to me.

There was some unopened mail

that was addressed as well to the resident.

Unopened mail can be one of the telltale signs

that a tenant isn't living there.

I've given the resident opportunities to meet with me.

-She's not attended any of the appointments.

-OK.

I've got no other option now

but to serve the notice seeking possession and the notice to quit.

The tenant is paying £500 a month rent,

but according to the online advert,

the amount subtenants are being charged is twice that.

So, her current rent is £500 a month and she's charging £1,000 a month,

so she's pocketing £500 a month.

Actually, she's on Housing Benefit,

so Housing Benefit are paying full rent,

so she's actually pocketing the full £1,000.

-Shall we make a move then?

-Yeah, let's do it.

Carly and Dominic are off to the flat

to start the process to get it back.

So, the priority for when we come across a case where

we definitely are able to prove sublet

is that we can recover the property back quickly

with least costs to Family Mosaic.

Going to court is a very expensive process.

Ideally, it's better if the person can relinquish their tenancy,

which means we're able to then offer that property

back to the local authority for all the other many families

and people that are wanting social housing

and have been following the correct procedures.

When I come across cases like this, I do find it frustrating,

but that's what drives me to take an interest in tenancy fraud

and do the work that I do.

Carly and Dominic arrive at the block of flats in Peckham.

They have no idea what to expect when they knock on the door.

So, this is Lords Court.

Last time Carly visited this flat,

she could hear suspected subtenants inside,

but no-one would come to the door.

I don't think anybody's here. Usually you can hear voices.

SHE KNOCKS

Hello. It's Family Mosaic. Can you open the door, please?

-I can't hear anything.

-No. I don't think anybody's home.

As nobody is in for me to hand-deliver the notice,

I'm having to serve it at the property,

so I'm going to secure it to the front door and take a picture

and then for our records that will show that the document

has been served successfully.

The residents have four weeks from date of service

at which to respond to Family Mosaic.

What I will then be doing

if I haven't had any contact from the resident,

I will be referring the case to Family Mosaic's legal team

in order to start court proceedings to commence...

for possession of the property.

And then I just have to take a picture

to show to the judge the document has been hand-delivered

to the property.

OK. Let's go.

Ideally, I would've liked to have met with the resident

and actually completed the occupancy check, got inside,

had a look at the property.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to do that today,

but the documents have been served.

The tenant failed to respond to the notice to quit,

so Family Mosaic are now seeking a possession order.

They're well on the way to getting this flat back,

so they can give it to someone who really needs it.

Council tenants should not be subletting their homes,

that is classified as fraud.

Well, I've never considered subletting my place,

because it is just basically totally against the law.

If someone is caught subletting, take the property off them.

Simple as that.

You know, there's no point going down all these routes

of a fine on this and a penalty for that.

Just take it off them.

It may seem obvious, but if you're given a council house

it's important that it's your main place of residence

and that you actually live in it most of the time.

If you no longer need it, you give it back.

Of course, if you're a council tenant,

you can go on holiday,

but if you're going to be away for more than six weeks,

then you need to inform your housing officer.

And anything more than 13 weeks and you need formal permission,

which is granted on a case-by-case basis.

Our next case takes us to Oxford and this one-bedroom flat

where one council tenant had his home,

or at least it should be his home.

In fact, last year he spent more than five months

living here in beautiful Thailand.

He didn't tell anyone from the council he was going,

and while he was away he unlawfully sublet his flat.

But the subtenants didn't pay the rent they'd agreed,

and when the official tenant got back to Oxford,

he went into the council offices, of all places, to complain.

Housing investigator Dan Barker was put on the case.

12 months ago, the tenant presented himself to the council offices,

saying that some tenants he'd had in his property hadn't paid him

the full amount of rent.

Yes, you did hear that right.

The tenant came into the council

to complain that someone he'd sublet his flat to hadn't paid his rent.

Fortunately, the customer services officer

who dealt with him at the time

realised the property was a council property

and contacted the investigations team,

at which point, I came down and spoke to the tenant.

The tenant proceeded to tell Dan the whole story.

He said that he'd been out of the country for five months

and that while he'd been away

he'd been subletting the property and the tenants hadn't paid him

the full amount of rent that had been agreed.

At that point, I cautioned him.

I realised he'd committed an offence

and asked him to come back at a later date for a formal interview.

At the formal interview,

the tenant admitted he'd been in Thailand

for more than five months, visiting his girlfriend who lived there.

Obviously, our tenants are allowed to take holidays.

However, they have to let us know if they're going away

for more than six weeks,

and they have to ask our permission

if they intend to be away for more than 13 weeks.

In this case, the tenant was away for five months.

And all that time, this one-bed property that the official tenant

should've been living in was being sublet

for nearly 100 a week.

Not only that, but he was also being paid full housing benefit.

So, whatever money he got from unlawfully subletting

went straight into his pocket.

He didn't seem to really grasp the repercussions of his actions.

I don't think he fully understood that leaving

the property for such a period and having subtenants

was against his tenancy and potentially a criminal offence.

Then there was one final twist in the tale.

Council records showed the subtenants who were

evicted by the official tenant when he got back from Thailand

had been to the council to declare themselves homeless.

They gave their previous address

as none other than the official tenant's flat.

It was the final confirmation, if they needed it,

that the tenant had been subletting.

Dan started legal proceedings to get the flat back.

We served notice to quit

and notice seeking possession on the tenant,

which gave him four weeks before the tenancy was terminated.

At the end of those four weeks,

the council went to court and was granted a possession order.

The tenant didn't contest the order and today, he's going to be evicted.

So, the bailiff and the locksmiths

have gone up to conduct the eviction.

They've also gone with one of tenancy management officers

in case the tenant is still in the property

to make sure that he's OK and that the process runs smoothly.

Once that's been finished,

I will then join them and conduct the audit

of the property in terms of recording any possessions

that are left behind by the tenant,

so they can be returned to him at a later date.

The flat is empty.

No-one is at home and Dan is given the all-clear to enter.

We've come to the property and the tenant has not been at home.

There's still quite a few of his possessions here,

so I'm just documenting everything that he's left behind.

So, once it goes into storage,

we can arrange for it to be returned to him

and we have an accurate record

of what was left behind at the property.

So, the property is actually in a fairly reasonable condition.

It's fairly clean and it appears to be in a pretty good state of repair.

I don't imagine it's going to be an awful lot of work

that the voids team need to do to get this ready for re-letting.

I imagine it'll be a fairly quick turnaround

and could be back on the market within two weeks.

Getting the property back is excellent news,

but an eviction attended by a locksmith and bailiff

costs around £1,000,

and in this case, that's an expense that could've been avoided.

Judging from the post that was on the floor,

he's been gone at least two weeks.

You know, he could've just handed his keys into the council

and then we could've saved the costs of having a bailiff

and all the extra people involved, a locksmith.

If he'd come to the council and handed his keys in,

we could've had the property re-let by now.

But at least now he has the keys back.

And as for the ex-tenant of this property,

he's free to spend as much time in Thailand as he likes.

I think if they're obviously in a position to move abroad,

obviously financially they must be pretty stable

to be able to move abroad, live abroad

and sustain a house here,

cos obviously they'll still have maybe, you know, a few bills

or whatever to pay.

From that point of view, I think it's unfair.

I think if people move out of the UK and keep their house,

it's a real problem at the moment, because of the high demand.

If someone's going to spend six months of the year

in another country,

then they shouldn't have a social housing flat.

That's crazy, you know,

when you've got someone around the corner who's desperate

for somewhere to live, you know.

It's tough times, so people should...

They should...

They should only have a flat if it's going to be their main home.

Britain's social housing stock is a precious resource.

People who live in social housing

have the privilege of reasonable rents,

but they also have responsibilities too.

Obviously, they have to pay the rent on time,

look after the place properly

and first and foremost, live in it as their primary home.

But they also need to seek permission

to spend time away or to make any major changes to the properties.

In Burnley, Lancashire, two housing association tenants

were evicted after seriously damaging their property -

going as far as removing the copper pipework and boiler

to sell on to a scrap metal dealer.

The pair received

six-month community orders

and were ordered

to pay compensation.

Next, we follow the mysterious case of a man who first

couldn't pay his rent,

then put in a bid to buy his property, gutted it

and then finally seemed to disappear altogether.

Although this man didn't commit tenancy fraud,

he flouted all the basic rules of his tenancy agreement.

In 2007, he moved into a very nice flat

in a lovely part of Clapham, South London.

Seven years later,

he applied to buy his flat under the council's Right to Buy scheme.

The Right to Buy scheme can allow tenants

up to approximately £100,000 discount on the price

of their social housing property.

Because of the huge amounts involved,

councils keep a close eye on these transactions.

The local council in this case, Lambeth,

routinely investigates every Right to Buy application

as part of its crackdown on fraud,

so investigator Pamela Esiso

was given this man's application to look into.

She immediately noticed that the tenant had financial problems.

When I started looking at the property,

I noted that the tenant had come to the area housing office

stating that he couldn't afford the rent

and he wanted to give up the property.

The area office said to him to think about it and come back,

but he needed to give four weeks' notice.

So, he went away and didn't come back after that.

A few months later, he puts in a Right to Buy.

Financial problems can happen to anyone,

but Pam was concerned

that if her tenant had difficulty paying his rent

he would also have difficulty paying a mortgage,

which would be considerably more expensive.

I carried out background checks on the tenant,

found that he was in financial difficulties.

He could barely afford his rent.

You know, from what I saw in the bank statements,

I didn't think he would afford a property of 400,000.

So, Pam started to dig deeper,

including looking at the tenant's online presence.

She discovered that he described himself as psychic

and also that he was looking into property investment.

He was also by this time in considerable rent arrears,

so Pam decided to pay her tenant an unannounced visit,

but he wasn't at home.

I went to the property,

I knocked on the door and a chap who didn't fit the profile

of the tenant opened the door.

I knew the tenant was French. We had a copy of his passport.

When I got there, I saw a different person. I saw a black male.

I asked when the tenant would be back.

He said, "Oh, probably the weekend."

And you know, just following on from that visit,

the suspicions had been raised yet again.

Pam spoke to a neighbour who told her

the tenant was no longer living there.

If you have a council tenancy,

part of the agreement is it has to be your primary home.

So, Pam called round a second time,

and this time she was amazed to be confronted

by a demolition site.

When we got there, the door was open and we walked in.

So, we didn't have to knock.

And we got in there, the total shock to me

of a big difference from when I saw it the last time.

I took photographs of what was going on.

The property was being refurbished. Completely gutted out.

There were lots of workmen. Everything was taken down.

The plumbing was being redone, the radiators.

The whole property was being refurbished.

At this point,

his Right to Buy application was still being assessed.

As he was still a council tenant,

any substantial work on a council property

has to be authorised upfront.

For council tenants,

you have to ask for permission when you carry out improvements.

It's part of your tenancy condition. And I had looked on the file.

There was nothing relating to refurbishments

or the request for authorisation.

Pam made further visits but never found the tenant in.

By now, Pam had amassed enough evidence

to evict the tenant for breaching his tenancy agreement

and serve a notice to quit.

Based on the evidence I had, I called up the area office

and requested they serve a notice immediately.

The notice to quit is the first step

in the process to get a property back.

In addition, Pam put an urgent stop on the Right to Buy application.

So, this morning, Luke is joining Pam's colleague,

tenancy enforcement officer Earl Lee.

Earl is about to serve the notice to quit

-at the council flat.

-Are you OK?

We're here today to serve notice on a tenant

who lives around the corner.

This is not the first time I've done this. We do this quite often.

But it's always nerve-racking, as I'm sure you'll appreciate.

We never know what's going to happen.

Serving eviction notices can be a tricky business.

I've had situations where I've been threatened, water thrown at me.

Could, of course, be a situation that no-one's there.

If that's the case, then I just serve the notice on the property.

But there's nothing to indicate there'll be a problem today.

-Hello. Mr

-BLEEP,

-I am from the council.

The door is opened by a man who does not fit the tenant's description,

and says he's a workman.

OK. Who's the occupier?

He tells the investigator that the tenant is not there,

that he doesn't know who the tenant is

and that, in fact, nobody is in occupation.

OK.

I just need to leave those for the person who should be living here.

He does however accept the paperwork.

-I'll just leave those for Mr

-BLEEP.

Thank you. Bye.

This gentleman is not known to us, but he does fit the description

of someone who has been seen at the property

by one of my colleagues before.

But he's certainly not the official tenant.

Now the tenant has 28 days to respond to the notice to quit.

He can do one of two things.

He can either give up possession of the property

or he can seek legal advice.

We will take that time to prepare a case,

which will then be preceded through courts.

So, you're going to take this one all the way to the end, as it were?

-Absolutely. It's our intention to do so.

-OK.

Two months later, the tenant was evicted

and the council are pursuing the rent arrears.

As a result of this investigation,

Lambeth have got one more council flat back

and have allocated it to someone on their waiting list.

As for the tenant, well,

I don't think he saw that one coming.

I think social housing is a really good thing.

It's important for the country and it's certainly important

for the people that definitely need this.

It's something that I think especially families need,

certainly across the capital and across the country.

Well, I think it's essential,

especially in a city like London where, you know,

housing is such a problem.

And I think it's really important it goes to the right people.

I think social housing is good,

because when people don't have a lot of money,

it helps them out and it gives them a bit of confidence.

Yeah. And if it wasn't there,

then we'd have a lot bigger problem than we have now with housing.

There are several different types of fraud tenancy cheats can employ.

One is succession fraud.

Succession is the legal term used for when a person inherits a tenancy

from a close relative, usually a parent, who has died.

To make a succession claim, a person must be eligible,

and that means they must have been living with a tenant

at the time of their death,

or if the tenancy started

before April 2012,

for at least 12 months previously.

In Hammersmith, West London,

a man applied for succession rights to inherit his father's flat,

claiming that he was living with his father at the time of his death.

The case was passed on to the council's antifraud service

and extensive checks revealed the man was actually living

in one of his mother's properties at the time.

The flat was returned

to the council.

Next, the case of a man who falsely claimed

he was entitled to inherit his late mother's flat,

and then when the claim was rejected,

he took the case to court.

Following the death of the elderly tenant of a flat in Balham,

South London, the tenant's son came forward

to make a succession claim on the property.

He told investigators he'd been living in this ground-floor flat

with his mother for over a year,

even though the flat only had one bedroom.

Luke joins Viridian Housing Association investigator Gemma

who's been looking into the case.

She doesn't wish to be identified.

We ask every claim that comes in for succession

to be referred over to us, so we can look at

whether it's a legitimate claim.

What we do is check whether someone has been residing

at the property for the last 12 months.

There's a big demand for one-bedroom ground-floor flats,

like the one the tenant's son wanted to inherit in Balham.

It's worth around £400,000 on the open market.

This is a really nice road, isn't it?

-It is.

-It's really lovely.

So, this is it.

I've seen a lot of social housing properties over the years, loads.

This is absolutely stunning.

When the elderly woman who lived here died in 2014,

her son contacted the housing association.

He came to you and asked if he could take over the tenancy?

He came to us and said that, "I would like to succeed the tenancy

"because I was living here and had been a resident with my mother."

Gemma was immediately suspicious,

because this was a one-bedroom property.

The son claimed he'd been sleeping on a sofa bed in the living room,

but Gemma decided to make some more inquiries.

First, she asked him for proof

that he'd been living at his mother's address.

He did supply some evidence,

but when we looked at it in more detail

we realised that he was providing letters

-that didn't even relate to him.

-Right.

-Strange.

-They were out...

-Very strange.

I mean, it was so obvious.

And also letters that weren't for the time that we'd requested either.

-OK.

-So, although he supplied lots of information,

it wasn't actual evidence that proved that he was resident

for the last 12 months there.

Unsatisfied with his response,

Gemma started researching the succession claimant.

Although he had recently changed

some of his bills over to his mother's address,

Gemma discovered the bulk of his correspondence

was associated with two other addresses in North London.

We found lots of evidence pointing him

to a different address completely, or two different addresses.

-Not even in our area. It was in North London.

-OK.

And one of those addresses was of particular interest.

We did searches and found that he was linked to this other address

more than he was linked to our tenant's property.

-OK.

-He was on the council tax register.

He was also on the electoral registries.

In fact, the electoral register showed the succession claimant

had been living with a woman thought to be his partner in North London

and not his mother in South London for the last three years.

So, it's kind of really linking him to his partner's property

-and not here.

-Absolutely.

All this information was adding up to a good case

that he was not entitled to succeed the tenancy.

You go into a massive amount of detail on these, don't you...?Yeah.

..looking at people's backgrounds?

Of course. We need to prove that he wasn't living at our property.

And it wasn't just the succession claimant's details

that were examined.

Gemma also looked into his mother's files

and found that she claimed the single person's discount

on a council tax and she didn't mention her son

on her benefits claim.

We confirmed that the mother

was claiming a single person's discount.

-Ah.

-Hadn't declared him on the benefit claim that she was on.

-OK.

The housing association rejected the son's succession claim,

but instead of giving up, he lodged an appeal.

I'm quite shocked by this because he knows

you have all this evidence against him

and he still goes to court to try to fight this.

-Did he come to court?

-Yes, he did.

-OK.

He attended every single hearing.

The final damning piece of evidence

was that eight months after his mother's death

and a week before court proceedings were due to start,

the tenant's son informed his place of work

that he was changing his address from North London

to his mother's address in South London.

Sure enough, the appeal was rejected.

Viridian Housing were given outright possession of the flat

and the failed succession claimant was ordered to pay costs

of more than £7,000.

How did it make you feel

to get this flat back into the public circle, if you like?

It was such a relief.

We're going to get a nice ground-floor property back.

There's someone that desperately needs this.

They've been waiting in the queue for years and years,

and it was such a nice feeling.

I don't think, personally, that, you know,

a house should be able to be passed on as a council house.

The council always own the house,

so they should have the right to say

who lives there, whether it's...in the future.

It shouldn't be able to be passed on, I don't think.

If that person is deceased now,

the next person in line that's needed the flat

it should go to, in that area within that council.

And it's not who you know. It's really the next person in line.

That's the only fair solution.

We used to have a system in the old council places

where when Mum or Dad died the children would have their place,

but we don't have it any more, so if you're lucky enough to have

what I still call a council place, which is social housing,

then keep it and when you die, someone else can have it.

I think the concept of, you know, cheating the system

for getting succession of the flat needs to be investigated.

I think a lot of resources are probably needed to look at that.

You know, what is the extent of that problem?

You know, to be honest, do we even know?

Social housing tenants who unlawfully sublet their property

sometimes advertise for subtenants.

Sometimes, as we've seen, they do that through online sites.

But one of the most brazen is to go through a high street estate agent.

Estate agents who help council tenants sublet their properties

may be breaking the law.

If an agency is duped

into advertising a council property for rent,

they could be fined or even jailed for up to two years

under Consumer Protection From Unfair Trading legislation.

New tenancy verification software

is now being developed to guard against this type of fraud.

We're back with Family Mosaic's investigators Carly and Dominic

on the trail of more unlawful subletters.

This isn't the first time housing investigators

have visited this particular two-bedroom flat

in Peckham, South London.

Last time, they found subletters here.

The property was tenanted by a couple

who spoke very little English.

My colleague did complete a visit here some time ago.

I do believe that the subtenants that we met with previously

have now left the address,

but I just want to see if our residents have actually returned

to the property or if it has again been sublet.

Checks revealed that the property had been let

through an estate agent.

This property was sublet through a managing agent.

The tenants have gone to a managing agent

and they obviously haven't carried out the checks required.

The tenants who should be living at this flat

were found to have links with other properties,

and investigators now want to establish once and for all

if they're living here or not.

We carried out checks on the tenants

that should be there

and we've linked them to two other properties.

They do have financial links, whether that be bank accounts,

credit cards or mobile phones to other addresses,

so we just need to double-check

and confirm exactly what property it is that they're residing at.

If there's no-one in today or if there are more subtenants

in the property,

then Carly and Dominic are going to serve a notice to quit.

Hello. This is Family Mosaic.

It seems there's no-one home,

so Carly and Dominic serve the notice to quit

and start the process to get the property back.

So, if you can...

I'll put it through the letterbox,

but I'll just take a picture of you actually putting it through.

-OK?

-Yeah.

There we go.

The tenants now have 28 days to give up the property

or provide an explanation.

It went OK. Ideally, I would've liked to have met with a resident

or at least a subtenant to get some more information,

but hopefully that will prompt the proper tenant

to get in contact to actually say, "Well, I've been caught.

"I hold my hands up. I'll relinquish my tenancy."

Or the other option is that they will be taken to court

and the judge can award us any monies that our tenants have gained

through illegally subletting their property.

The investigation is still ongoing, but with any luck,

the property will soon be reclaimed

and will provide a home for a more deserving family.

Agencies, particularly, should be penalised very heavily

if they are not assuring that these are proper tenancies.

Well, I guess for the people who are doing the subletting

it's cos you can make an awful lot of money,

because there's just a massive lack of housing available

to people who are desperate to be housed.

A lot of people abuse the system

and they take what they can get rather than taking what they need.

Councils and housing associations

take the idea of social housing fraud very seriously.

Good morning, everybody.

In 2012, they set up the Tenancy Fraud Forum,

which is sort of a supergroup of social landlords in the UK.

-Has everyone got an agenda?

-Yep.

-Yes.

Their mission is to share information

and come up with new ways of combating fraud.

Thank you so much for coming this morning

to the meeting of the Tenancy Fraud Forum.

We've got a very full and very interesting agenda.

The Tenancy Fraud Forum was formed to ensure

that all social landlords could work together

in combating tenancy fraud.

The forum meets four times a year.

Katrina Robinson from Viridian Housing Association

is the group's chair.

If people are subletting,

they should realise that social landlords

share information and data with each other,

so if somebody is subletting in Liverpool

and they've moved to Northern Ireland,

we will find out about it.

Sharing news of successes is high on the agenda.

We've had two cases that have gone to court

and we've been successful in both those cases.

Councils and housing associations

have got new tools to help root out wrongdoers.

Garym Lambert is a council fraud manager

from South Northants Council.

Anybody who investigates tenancy fraud has got significant powers.

We can get your bank accounts.

Utilities, gas, electricity, water, TV license, any finance you have.

Vehicle details. Anything like that, we can get that.

And the penalties are serious.

We are seeing more and more cases being put into the courts.

Ultimately, in the worst cases,

it's two years imprisonment and/or £50,000 in fines.

Monday we got our first Right to Buy fraud.

She pleaded guilty and she's sentencing on Friday.

-Very good. So she'll be going to prison for it then.

-Well, maybe.

Yes, let's hope so.

Since the Tenancy Fraud Forum has set up,

our members have really seen their success rates increase,

especially since we've had

the Prevention Of Social Housing Fraud Act,

which came into force in 2013.

Now somebody can go to prison for subletting

and we can also get back the profits that they've made.

And cooperation between housing associations

and local authorities is yielding results on the ground,

as our next case shows.

We're on the trail of a tenancy cheat

who's been subletting his Central London apartment

while for the last five years living and working in Las Vegas.

He should've been living in this very nice one-bedroom flat here

just around the corner from Euston Station,

but instead he was here in the gambling capital of the US.

-Hey, Sherene.

-Oh, hi, Luke.

-How are you?

-I'm fine, thank you.

-Good.

-Good to see you.

-And you.

-So, another case.

-Yes.

Luke's with housing officer Sherene Horne,

who was put on the case thanks to a tip-off from a tenant.

One of the residents in that block informed me

that there's a possible sublet

as they haven't seen the original tenant for quite a long time.

And I have to say that we do rely on information from residents,

cos we're not on site all the time, we don't see the comings and goings.

And also I'm sure that they don't want to see

properties being fraudulently used.

You know, they're honest, law-abiding residents,

so they expect others to be the same.

In fact, around 50% of the cases Sherene investigates

are as the result of a tip-off.

So, basically I did some checks and I did an audit.

I found a young lady to be residing in the property.

She didn't give me much information.

She just let me know that the tenant wasn't there at the time.

It's a clear case of unlawful subletting.

It's in a wonderful location. We can go and have a look, if you'd like?

-I'd love to. That'd be great.

-Yeah, let's do that.

-Thank you.

-There you go.

-So, it's on the second floor.

-Yes.

OK. OK.

So, it's a one-bedroom property.

-So, this would be the bedroom.

-This is the bedroom area.

-OK.

-I mean, for Central London, good size.

-Yeah.

-Kind of a dressing area down there.

-Storage down there.

-So, OK. That's in pretty good condition, isn't it?

-Yeah.

This is a decent bathroom,

so we should be able to just clean that up.

So, if we come through here,

we've got the kitchen and the lounge.

-This is nice.

-Yeah.

-This is lovely.

It's nice, it's spacious.

Oh, you know, you've got cafes, bars.

-And Euston Station...

-Yep.

-..two minute walk?

-Exactly.

-This is prime.

-It is. It's a really nice location.

-The community in the block is a close-knit community.

-Mm-hm.

That's how I came to find out that this property was being sublet.

Once she got a tip-off from a neighbour,

Sherene started looking into the tenant's background.

I carried out some checks with the National Fraud Agency.

That evidenced that the resident

didn't have any links to the address, none at all.

Looked at the electoral register to see if the resident was on there.

He wasn't, but several other people were.

It looked like he'd been subletting for some time.

Sherene passed her findings on to the local authority

for further checks.

So, I sent the details to Camden for further investigation

and Camden were able to locate the resident out of the country

and informed me that he hadn't been in the UK for over five years.

-Five years?!

-Yes. A very long time.

In fact, he'd been here - Las Vegas, the gambling capital of America.

After five years of unlawful subletting,

this tenant had plenty of money

to fritter away on the slot machines,

but the game was about to be up.

So, once I received confirmation

that actually he wasn't living at the property, I served notices.

I served a notice to quit and a notice of seeking possession.

-Right.

-That was sent to Las Vegas and hand-delivered to this property.

-Did he respond?

-He didn't respond,

but what he did do was ensure that the keys were delivered

to our offices before the end of the notice period.

-Oh, really?

-Yeah.

So, what that did was that meant that we could end the tenancy

without having to go to court.

So, that saved us some money on court costs.

I think he realised he was bang to rights,

especially as we had his address in Las Vegas.

I think he realised then that the best thing

is to just give back the tenancy.

So, thanks to the neighbour's tip-off and Sherene's tenacity,

this tenant had little choice but to cash in his chips.

And from the first point of your investigation

to getting the keys back, how long was that period?

All in all, it took just over four months

to regain possession of the property,

so really that's quite a speedy recovery,

because I have had cases that have dragged on for two years.

-Good work all around. Fantastic.

-Yeah. Thank you.

Now this flat will be allocated to someone more deserving,

and all because what happened in Vegas didn't stay in Vegas.

As we've seen, the tide is starting to turn

as investigators use new powers

to track down tenancy cheats wherever they are,

reclaim their properties and give them back

to some of the 1.5 million families

on council waiting lists across the UK.