Episode 4 Council House Crackdown


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Transcript


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I'm Michelle Ackerley.

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My parents both grew up on council estates

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and as a family, we understand the difference

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social housing can make to people's lives.

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But across the UK, there's a chronic shortage of council

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and housing association homes.

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I know so many friends and so many people that just literally

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don't have anywhere to live.

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

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

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unlawfully subletting them and coining in a small fortune.

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Subletting social housing is wrong, it's wrong,

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it's illegal and it's wrong.

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

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as they crack down on those rogue tenants...

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County court bailiffs!

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..reclaim properties...

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Anybody in?

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..and give them to families in genuine need.

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All of those keys are yours.

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Oh. Don't, cos you'll start me off again.

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This is Council House Crackdown.

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Our reporter, property expert Luke Doonan,

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also grew up on a council estate.

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And for the last six months, he's been working

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alongside dedicated housing investigators

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who will stop at nothing to track down every single tenant

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who's abusing the system.

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Today, we discover an ex-pop star forging documents

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in a tenancy fraud spanning nearly 20 years.

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The occupant has been arrested,

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he's about to be brought down and taken off to a police station.

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We find out just how intense cracking down on suspected

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cheats can get.

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Yeah. Where did you...?

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I would like to have a look around the flat.

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And we catch up with a tenant who claims he's living

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in his council house in Reading, when he's actually in Greece.

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You wouldn't put your status as, "Living in Greece,"

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unless you were living in Greece.

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-That's pretty blatant, isn't it?

-Yeah, absolutely.

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England is home to eight million social housing properties.

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A staggering 20% of these tenancies are thought to be fraudulent.

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Meanwhile, there are 1.8 million families on the waiting list.

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From technology to tip-offs,

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housing investigators have many weapons with which to tackle tenancy

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fraud, but sometimes the most effective is a surprise door knock.

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Our first case is an unlawful sublet.

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The couple who should be living here have been subletting for nine years

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to their nephew, whilst they've been in Portugal.

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6am, Battersea, South London, the Springfield estate.

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Ben Marshall and Alan Emmerson are housing investigators

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from Lambeth Council.

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They've received a tip-off that two of the properties

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on the estate may be being unlawfully sublet.

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So, they're heading out before dawn to see if they

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can catch people at home.

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Morning. Lambeth Council.

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No light on.

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No, but I think that is his BMW downstairs.

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Ben's informer also mentioned the car.

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Good morning. From the council.

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Good morning, sir.

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I'm doing a tenancy audit, I'm after Maria or Jose.

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Who are you, please?

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The man who comes to the door is not the legal tenant.

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But he agrees to talk to the two investigators.

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Ben and Alan are invited inside.

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OK, thank you. Cheers.

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But our cameras are not allowed in.

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The legal tenants of the property are a middle-aged couple

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originally from Portugal.

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The person who answers the door is a young man in his 20s.

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He tells the investigators he's the nephew of the tenants

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and he's paying the rent.

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But he also reveals that he has someone else there paying HIM rent.

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I'll write to you and we'll take it from there. OK? Cheers, mate.

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So, it seems the official tenants have been gone for a full

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nine years without ever telling the council.

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Nine years in which someone on the housing waiting list could

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have been in the home.

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We've been into the property, the tenants went abroad nine

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years ago and that's what the guys told us as well.

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He knew the game was up.

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He was pretty much saying, "Yeah, I know there was a situation,

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"I knew something like this would happen at some point and,

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"yeah, it's true, it's fair enough.

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"My uncle's been gone for, I think, nine years, pretty much."

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Pretty safe to say we'll get the property back,

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How many families, over those nine years,

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could've been housed in that pretty nice flat?

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It's pretty wrong.

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Three weeks later, Luke goes to see Ben, to see

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if there's been any developments on this case.

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So, Ben, tell me what evidence you have on this one.

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Well, we looked into the guy that was in the property.

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The tenants are long gone, they've been gone for nine years,

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but he's the legitimate nephew of them

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and, so, they've left him to use the property. No-one's told us.

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Right, so, basically, the original tenant has left, gone elsewhere

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and effectively handed over or given the property to their nephew?

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Absolutely.

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And he's a younger guy, so I did a bit of looking into him

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-and I found out that he's a managing director of his own company.

-Really?

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What kind of company? Have you got anything you could show me?

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Yeah, well, this is a support services company

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and one of the things that they do is they do, for example,

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cleaning of pre-tenancies and around the housing market

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and cleaning of communal areas and bits and pieces.

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You know, loosely based in, certainly, social housing.

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The other thing is, so, he's paying the much reduced, you know,

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rent of sort of £450 a month or so.

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When obviously, if he was in the private sector,

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it would be 1,300 at least, I would have thought.

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But the thing that makes it even worse, actually,

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is that it's a two-bed property.

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He was in one of the rooms,

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but he was subletting the other bedroom throughout as well.

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-Oh, wow.

-Throughout these nine years as well, so...

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I don't know how much money he's made from that,

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but it'll be very significant.

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We know a bit about the nephew, who's been living in the property.

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Where are the original tenants, do you know?

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Well, they are Portuguese and the long and short of it is that,

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nine years ago, they went back to Portugal to live in Portugal.

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They've got their own home in Portugal

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and that's simply where they are.

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They decided then to give the property, effectively,

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to their nephew here, cos he was still in London.

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They don't have the right to do that, do they?

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Absolutely not, no. They simply needed to tell the council

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that they were leaving, we'd have got the council property back

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nine years ago, we'd have turned it round very quickly

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and, as I say, some homeless family wouldn't be homeless.

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We're in a very wealthy country.

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Nobody in this country should be living without a roof

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over their head.

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I think the social housing system is very valuable

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and it's clearly under tremendous pressure

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and we've seen a lot of examples of that recently.

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And, yeah, I think it's central to the future of London

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that we have a healthy social housing sector.

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I'm an ex-council tenant, I'm now a home owner.

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But it was a really good thing to be able to get into,

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for the simple fact, like you said, it was a stepping stone.

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I couldn't afford to go and privately rent,

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I couldn't afford to buy anything,

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but I was lucky enough to get a council flat.

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So, I used it as a stepping stone and, obviously,

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I'm now a homeowner.

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I still live with my parents.

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Cos I can't afford to move out,

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but I'm grateful and thankful that I have a roof over my head.

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In 2013, the Prevention Of Social Housing Fraud Act

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came into force, making the unauthorised subletting of council

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properties by the official tenant a criminal offence.

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People who are unknowingly renting from the official tenant

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would not normally be prosecuted,

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but if the subtenant

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does know and is in on it,

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they could be charged

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under the Fraud Act.

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The next case is an extraordinary story of an ex-pop star

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who assumed someone's identity

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in order to stay in a council property

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that he wasn't entitled to.

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The lead investigator on this story is Mike Frost.

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In the last six years, he's reclaimed 519 social housing

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homes from people who were misusing them.

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Today, Luke joins him as he hopes to make it 520.

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Mike's been uncovering one of the most extraordinary cases

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he's ever come across.

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They're on their way to Stockwell, in South London,

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to raid on a council property which has been unlawfully sublet

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for nearly 20 years.

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We're investigating a case that the fraud's gone back

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roughly 20 years.

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Wow, I mean, 20 years is, obviously, a massive amount of time.

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# Beautiful Sunday... #

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The person who's been renting it is an ex-pop star.

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# My beautiful day... #

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This is him on a German TV show in 1972.

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His stage name was Daniel Boone.

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But his real name is Peter Green.

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# My, my, it's a beautiful day. #

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The story starts in 1995 when a man called Frank Zourab

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moved into a lovely Victorian council property in Albert Square.

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Not that one, this one's in Lambeth.

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But two years ago, when a housing officer made a routine visit

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to the property and was refused access, alarm bells started ringing.

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Mike began an investigation.

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He quickly discovered that the man paying the utility bills

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was a Peter Green.

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So, where was the official tenant - Frank Zourab?

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Mike's team went back to the address to find out exactly who was

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living in their property.

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The man who answered the door said he was Frank Zourab.

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He actually opened the door for us straightaway.

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He was very amenable.

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But he was quite adamant that he was Frank Zourab.

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To prove it, he showed Mike a Freedom bus pass

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with a photo ID in the name of Frank Zourab.

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But Mike wasn't convinced he was actually the legal tenant,

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so he asked him some more questions.

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We asked him what his date of birth was

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and he gave us the wrong date of birth for our tenant.

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I didn't believe that he was Frank Zourab from that moment.

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So, the investigations team dug deeper.

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They checked with the police and with the border agencies

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and discovered Frank Zourab had left the country in 1996.

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The man who was actually residing at the flat was ex-pop star

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Peter Green.

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He was about to face some tough questions.

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I said to him, well, we're going to do an audit,

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he has to sign and confirm details and also we'd take

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a statement from him and if he lied in that statement,

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that would be considered fraud

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and that's when he held his hands up.

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He had used his photo with Frank Zourab's name

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on official documents that he used as ID in order to

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live in a property he wasn't entitled to.

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Now, Mike's about to join police officers

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and a bailiff at the property.

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He's obviously used the property, misused it for 20 years

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in our tenant's name.

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-That's a massive amount of time, isn't it?

-It's huge, yeah.

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Mike's priority today is to make sure that any evidence at the flat

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is collected and preserved

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and that Peter Green is arrested and taken in for questioning.

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KNOCK ON DOOR

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-Hello, Peter.

-Come in, I'll put on me dressing gown.

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The police explain to Peter Green the reason for his arrest.

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-OFFICER:

-Sir, it's Brixton police.

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Over the last couple of years or more than a couple of years,

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you've had in your possession false identity documents

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with improper intention of using them,

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i.e. someone else's identity with your face on certain documents,

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official documents.

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For that reason, you're going to be arrested today

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-and taken to Brixton Police Station, OK?

-Oh.

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The man who Mike believes has been pretending

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to be the official tenant for 20 years

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has been told to get dressed, while Mike and the police

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search the house for evidence.

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So, Mike, what's happening at the moment?

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Basically, we're just going to have to do a search of the property

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to gather some of the evidence that we've seen previously.

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-He has said to us that he's thrown a lot of it away already.

-OK.

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He admitted to doing that.

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But I know that some of the documents used to be in his room,

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so once the policemen have finished dealing with him there,

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we'll search his room after we've searched the rest of the property.

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OK, what kind of things are you looking for?

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Just looking for the false IDs,

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looking for any potential tenancy agreement.

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Any links where I can see an association between himself

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and our tenant.

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He knows our tenant, he's known him, apparently as friends,

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he communicates with him and sends him Christmas cards.

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He has their telephone numbers and their addresses,

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so, we'll be looking for an address book as well

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with telephone numbers as well.

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-There could be a lot of information you could find here.

-Yeah.

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It seems there's more paperwork in the bedroom.

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And just to clarify, the gentleman here

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that's just been arrested has been, effectively,

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pretending to be the original tenant for how long now?

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Er...over 20 years.

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-Right. Massive amount of time.

-Yeah, it's huge. It's huge.

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A council tax bill only strengthens the case against him.

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The name of the real tenant is Frank Zourab

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and this council tax bill is in the name of Peter Green,

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which is where he's changed it.

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Chopped and changed it from Peter Green to Zourab and back.

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OK. When he thought he'd been rumbled, as it were,

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-he changed it back into the tenant's name.

-To the tenant's name.

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-That's correct, yeah.

-OK.

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With Mike's investigations complete,

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it won't be long before the property is repossessed.

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The occupant has been arrested

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and I believe he's about to be brought down

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and taken off to a police station.

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Mike and his team are going to stay upstairs to try and find

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some more evidence.

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After 19 years of living there, there's a lot of paperwork up there.

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So, Mike, what happens next?

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From here we go to the police station,

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where we'll conduct a PACE interview.

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Gives him an opportunity to put his side of the story in,

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obviously, hopefully clear the matter up for us.

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Hopefully we'll garner some details of our tenant,

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make contact with our tenant,

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cos that's the next most important step.

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We'll contact our tenant and hopefully get this property

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back into circulation.

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The police questioned Peter Green

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and the housing association got the property back.

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The flat has now been re-let to someone

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from the housing waiting list.

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I think it is good if councils do investigate

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and, as I said, I think the deeper problem

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needs to be addressed as well.

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But, certainly, in the short term, yes, I'm in favour of councils

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making sure that what limited supply there is

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is going to people who need it the most.

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I think it's just such a shame that, if there is a system there,

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for it to be abused.

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I think we've probably got to look at the reasons why

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people are doing that and also how it's allowed to happen.

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Because, obviously, all of those people who are kind of abusing

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the system have more than their fair share,

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there's people who have absolutely nothing.

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I mean, it's been so cold recently

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and the number of people who are homeless on the streets

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is just heartbreaking.

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It's not fair, is it? Other people could have that flat.

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But it's happening a lot, actually, yeah.

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There are other ways tenants

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can illegally use their council properties.

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A 31-year-old Birmingham man conned home seekers

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out of £2,000 worth of deposits

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when he advertised his council flat using a classified ad site online.

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The same man had previously been sentenced

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to two years in prison for defrauding women

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he met on dating websites.

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His council flat advert tricked a single mother of two

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and a trainee chef out of several hundred pounds each.

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He was sentenced to two years

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and eight months in jail.

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Investigators Ben Marshall and Alan Emmerson

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from Lambeth Council

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are making unannounced visits to the Springfield housing estate

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in South London.

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Working on information received, they're following up on

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properties they think might be unlawfully sublet.

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They've received a tip-off from the police that the people

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living at this next flat are not the official tenants.

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-Hello.

-Hello, good morning. From the council.

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-Good morning.

-Morning.

-Morning,

-BLEEP.

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My name's Mr Marshall, from the council, my colleague.

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We're doing a tenancy audit of the property, of the block.

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I should also say we're being followed by the BBC at the moment,

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so, they're filming at the moment.

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Is at all right for us all to come in?

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All right, we've got two ladies as well.

0:18:080:18:11

Thank you.

0:18:110:18:12

The lawful tenants of this flat are a middle-aged couple.

0:18:120:18:16

How long have you been living here?

0:18:160:18:18

-So, you don't live here?

-No.

-Where do you live then?

0:18:220:18:24

-At

-BLEEP,

-97

-BLEEP.

0:18:240:18:27

Southwark, is it?

0:18:280:18:30

You're here now.

0:18:300:18:31

But you don't live here, OK.

0:18:320:18:34

My information is that you do live here.

0:18:340:18:37

So that's one thing I would say.

0:18:370:18:39

-Who's your uncle?

-BLEEP.

0:18:390:18:43

The man is claiming that he's looking after the flat

0:18:430:18:47

for his uncle.

0:18:470:18:48

Did you sleep here last night?

0:18:480:18:50

Right, OK.

0:18:580:18:59

Yeah.

0:19:020:19:03

-So, where is

-BLEEP

-now?

0:19:050:19:07

Apart from you, who else stays here?

0:19:080:19:10

OK, if you don't stay here, who does stay here?

0:19:130:19:15

Anyone else?

0:19:170:19:19

And they live here, do they?

0:19:190:19:20

-No, that's fine.

-If you don't know, you can just tell us you don't know.

0:19:280:19:31

We're just trying to establish who might be at the property.

0:19:310:19:34

We've come here this morning looking for the tenant.

0:19:340:19:37

-Yeah.

-Where did you stay last night?

0:19:390:19:40

Yeah, well, I can...speak to him.

0:19:530:19:56

I would like to have a look round the flat.

0:19:580:20:00

The man refuses to answer any more questions and he tells Ben and Alan

0:20:020:20:07

he wants them to leave,

0:20:070:20:09

so that he can get back to sleep.

0:20:090:20:10

No worries.

0:20:110:20:13

Ben and Alan are heading back to the office

0:20:150:20:17

to dig deeper into exactly

0:20:170:20:18

who's been using this property and for how long.

0:20:180:20:22

Two months later, an enquiry's still ongoing.

0:20:220:20:27

A series of credit checks have been carried out

0:20:270:20:29

revealing that eight different people

0:20:290:20:31

have been financially associated with the property in recent years.

0:20:310:20:35

Ben and Alan believe the lawful tenant is no longer living there

0:20:360:20:40

and are preparing to start the formal process

0:20:400:20:43

to get the property back.

0:20:430:20:45

Subletting is obviously wrong and should be cracked down hard.

0:20:490:20:54

I think people who illegally sublet their council accommodation

0:20:540:20:58

should know that they're breaking the law,

0:20:580:21:01

whether morally or criminally.

0:21:010:21:03

I think they deserve to be punished as criminals

0:21:030:21:06

and in my view they should lose their property

0:21:060:21:09

and pay back all the money they've made.

0:21:090:21:11

Well, I suppose they're subletting it to people

0:21:110:21:13

that still need housing,

0:21:130:21:15

so, that is I suppose right,

0:21:150:21:17

but they shouldn't use it for their own income.

0:21:170:21:20

The people doing the illegal subletting

0:21:200:21:23

are doing it fraudulently, they won't pay tax.

0:21:230:21:25

So, that tax isn't going into providing more housing,

0:21:250:21:28

so everybody is a loser from what's happening.

0:21:280:21:31

Ah, Greece.

0:21:380:21:40

Sunshine, blue skies, picture-postcard scenery.

0:21:400:21:44

It's no wonder so many of us Brits visit every year.

0:21:440:21:48

One council tenant liked it so much, he decided to move here.

0:21:480:21:52

Nothing wrong with that until you know he's supposed to be living

0:21:560:22:00

in a social housing property near Reading.

0:22:000:22:02

The tenant concerned is a martial arts teacher.

0:22:070:22:10

He'd been a tenant of housing association One Housing

0:22:100:22:13

since the late 1980s.

0:22:130:22:15

There was nothing remarkable about the tenancy

0:22:150:22:18

until a few years ago when housing officers noticed that

0:22:180:22:21

whenever anything needed doing around the house,

0:22:210:22:24

it was always the tenant's daughter who contacted them.

0:22:240:22:27

Luke finds out more.

0:22:270:22:28

Our tenant's daughter had called on behalf of her father

0:22:280:22:32

a couple of times with repairs.

0:22:320:22:35

If you've got someone's daughter just phoning up,

0:22:350:22:37

that's quite normal, is it?

0:22:370:22:38

Just to organise repairs or whatever is needed?

0:22:380:22:41

It's not unusual, but it happened on a number of occasions,

0:22:410:22:45

they hadn't really seen him, they'd gone round to the property,

0:22:450:22:48

they weren't finding the tenant.

0:22:480:22:50

They weren't really seeing him at home.

0:22:500:22:52

So, suspicions at the housing association were raised

0:22:520:22:55

and then the tenant called Reading local authority's

0:22:550:22:59

council tax department.

0:22:590:23:00

In April of 2014, our tenant called them up and said,

0:23:000:23:05

"I want to move, I'm moving abroad with my wife.

0:23:050:23:09

"Can you put our daughter on the council tax?"

0:23:090:23:12

At this point, he's only talking to local authority,

0:23:120:23:15

but what he's saying there is he's going to go

0:23:150:23:17

and live abroad somewhere else,

0:23:170:23:19

his daughter's going to stay in the property.

0:23:190:23:21

-If you have social housing, you can't just do that, can you?

-No.

0:23:210:23:24

I think he didn't expect anyone to be looking at this too seriously.

0:23:240:23:30

Maybe he didn't think he was doing anything that wrong

0:23:300:23:33

by just allowing his daughter to live in the property.

0:23:330:23:35

It's a common misconception,

0:23:350:23:37

but normally you cannot pass your social housing on to your children.

0:23:370:23:41

They have to join the queue with everyone else.

0:23:410:23:45

Back on the trail, the council contacted the housing

0:23:450:23:47

association investigators and asked them to look into the case.

0:23:470:23:51

They began their search online.

0:23:510:23:54

We make great use of social media, things of that nature.

0:23:540:23:59

-People post about their lives.

-Yeah, sure.

0:23:590:24:02

So, what we did, we did a quick search

0:24:020:24:04

and we found a profile for our tenant online.

0:24:040:24:07

OK, what did that tell you?

0:24:070:24:08

March 2014, saying goodbye to the pets,

0:24:080:24:11

cos he's moving to Greece.

0:24:110:24:13

-"Due to our house move, our beautiful pets

-BLEEP

-and cat

-BLEEP

0:24:130:24:18

"and the dog are changing household.

0:24:180:24:20

"It's sad to see them both going."

0:24:200:24:22

He's re-homing his pets and, again, you can see March 2014

0:24:220:24:26

right around the time...

0:24:260:24:27

It's tied in with the information we already have

0:24:270:24:29

that he's going to leave.

0:24:290:24:31

You can see here that it says he's living in Greece

0:24:310:24:33

and a picture of the house there.

0:24:330:24:34

From our point of view,

0:24:340:24:36

the evidence doesn't get too much better than that.

0:24:360:24:38

I guess you wouldn't put your status as, I can see it there,

0:24:380:24:41

"Living in Greece," unless you were living in Greece.

0:24:410:24:45

This is a social media site, Facebook,

0:24:450:24:46

that everyone uses, pretty much.

0:24:460:24:48

-So, he's putting that out there to the world.

-Yeah, absolutely.

0:24:480:24:51

And he's very detailed about what he posts and there's a lot of it,

0:24:510:24:55

so you know, and it's very specific about locations, what he's doing.

0:24:550:24:58

He tags himself in, so, you can see from some of the posts,

0:24:580:25:01

we'll have a look, that he's actually located himself

0:25:010:25:04

as being in Greece when he's putting that up and putting that out there.

0:25:040:25:08

He's putting so much information on.

0:25:080:25:10

So, in a way he's giving you, on a plate,

0:25:100:25:13

quite a beautiful life story in images, isn't he?

0:25:130:25:16

Absolutely. Anyone who can use a computer can access.

0:25:160:25:20

-It's very blatant, isn't it?

-It is, yeah.

0:25:200:25:22

With nearly 39 million people in the UK using the internet

0:25:230:25:27

every single day, tracking someone's life is easier

0:25:270:25:30

than you might think.

0:25:300:25:32

From social media and online banking to chatrooms and forums.

0:25:320:25:36

It's a source of information

0:25:360:25:38

that councils

0:25:380:25:39

and housing associations are now

0:25:390:25:40

actively using to investigate

0:25:400:25:42

tenancy fraud suspects

0:25:420:25:44

and put guilty parties behind bars.

0:25:440:25:47

More evidence came in the form of another status update.

0:25:480:25:51

So, you can see here in the very same month on this next post,

0:25:510:25:55

"Started a new job."

0:25:550:25:56

OK, I mean, that is just, surely, all the information you need?

0:25:560:26:00

The guy has moved, I can see it says, "Moved,"

0:26:000:26:03

I can see it says, "Started work."

0:26:030:26:05

Yeah, absolutely, I mean, for us,

0:26:050:26:06

this is almost the perfect investigation.

0:26:060:26:09

We don't really want to have to go and trace money or anything

0:26:090:26:12

through three, four, five bank accounts.

0:26:120:26:14

This is all here, it's all been given to us

0:26:140:26:16

by the tenant simply putting information out there

0:26:160:26:20

for the public and for anyone to read.

0:26:200:26:22

With so much evidence already in the public domain,

0:26:220:26:26

Graham felt confident his tenant would move his daughter out

0:26:260:26:29

and give the keys back to the housing association.

0:26:290:26:32

We've had an interview with him

0:26:320:26:34

and we've essentially put this information to him.

0:26:340:26:36

We've said that we don't believe that he's living at the address,

0:26:360:26:39

that his daughter's living at the address and he's out in Greece.

0:26:390:26:42

We've taken him through the same evidence that we've shown you today.

0:26:420:26:46

He denied that he was living in Greece.

0:26:460:26:48

-Really?

-Absolutely.

-Wow.

0:26:480:26:50

What he said to us was that, essentially, you can update

0:26:500:26:54

your Facebook status from anywhere and I just do that.

0:26:540:26:58

I want all my friends to know that I've...a nice life,

0:26:580:27:00

I've got self-confidence issues...

0:27:000:27:02

So, basically, he was saying to us,

0:27:020:27:04

"I'm not living there, I'm just making these posts up."

0:27:040:27:07

So, Graham was forced to get yet more evidence.

0:27:070:27:11

We also requested bank statements from him

0:27:110:27:13

and one of those was a joint account with his wife in Greece.

0:27:130:27:18

We asked him in the interview if he had,

0:27:180:27:21

if he knew about that account and at first, he denied it.

0:27:210:27:24

He denied it flat out.

0:27:240:27:26

We said to him, "We've got this joint account,

0:27:260:27:28

"that's going to clearly show transactions coming from Greece."

0:27:280:27:31

Did he try and fight to keep the property?

0:27:310:27:33

A few days later, he came to the office and said

0:27:330:27:36

that actually he didn't want to have that fight...

0:27:360:27:39

He said that he was prepared to hand the keys back.

0:27:390:27:42

Finally, this Greek tragedy had come to an end.

0:27:420:27:45

We have vacant possession, we have the property back

0:27:450:27:48

and it's in the process of being re-let.

0:27:480:27:50

OK. And I have no doubt whatsoever that a family

0:27:500:27:52

who is in genuine need of social housing

0:27:520:27:55

will be over the moon to live in a house like that.

0:27:550:27:58

Yeah. Absolutely.

0:27:580:27:59

We've seen before, it's a lovely property,

0:27:590:28:01

it's going to one of the many deserving people

0:28:010:28:04

who will make good use of it.

0:28:040:28:05

London councils own a quarter of all council homes in England,

0:28:100:28:14

but are responsible for over half of all housing fraud detected.

0:28:140:28:18

1,618 homes were recovered

0:28:200:28:22

from cheats in London last year.

0:28:220:28:25

If you've got something that's worth a lot of money,

0:28:270:28:30

i.e. somewhere to live in London,

0:28:300:28:31

it's bound to be open to, you know, people abusing the system.

0:28:310:28:35

I think the strain in London is particularly difficult.

0:28:350:28:38

London is a hub for migrants,

0:28:380:28:40

it's a hub for people who want to work on the black market.

0:28:400:28:44

And I think...and therefore, as a result of that,

0:28:440:28:46

you're going to get overcrowding.

0:28:460:28:48

There are people out there that do need social housing

0:28:480:28:51

and need it desperately.

0:28:510:28:53

Especially people with bigger families.

0:28:530:28:56

So, in order for other people to actually earn their money

0:28:560:28:59

off that, which I think is quite...

0:28:590:29:01

It's not nice, really, is it?

0:29:010:29:03

Who wants to sleep on the streets?

0:29:030:29:04

Who wants to, you know, not have a bed?

0:29:040:29:08

Who wants to sleep in hostels?

0:29:080:29:10

As far as I'm concerned, my home is really important to myself.

0:29:100:29:13

And, you know, if it came that I basically no longer needed it,

0:29:130:29:20

the first thing I would do is give it back to the people

0:29:200:29:22

that I actually owned the place from, you know,

0:29:220:29:25

and not be selfish about it.

0:29:250:29:27

Some tenancy fraud cases can be resolved very quickly,

0:29:300:29:34

but others can take months of painstaking detective work.

0:29:340:29:37

Viridian Housing is one of the biggest housing associations

0:29:390:29:43

in the UK, it manages over 16,000 properties.

0:29:430:29:47

Preventing property fraud is a big priority for them.

0:29:470:29:50

Luke meets up with Katrina Robinson,

0:29:500:29:52

who heads up Viridian's tenancy fraud operations.

0:29:520:29:55

Katrina is relentless in her pursuit of tenancy cheats,

0:29:550:29:59

so much so her efforts were recognised by Her Majesty

0:29:590:30:02

when she received an MBE in the New Year's Honours list.

0:30:020:30:05

Katrina, how do you deal with housing fraud here at Viridian?

0:30:050:30:09

Well, we have two in-house tenancy fraud investigators

0:30:090:30:13

and we also have an in-house legal team.

0:30:130:30:15

And we are very passionate about detecting

0:30:150:30:18

and stopping tenancy fraud.

0:30:180:30:20

Why are you so passionate about this?

0:30:200:30:22

Because it's simply not right

0:30:220:30:23

when we have the huge problems we have at the moment

0:30:230:30:26

and probably will continue in the country regarding housing.

0:30:260:30:29

But people are making vast sums of money

0:30:290:30:31

out of subletting our properties and they just shouldn't be.

0:30:310:30:34

Our properties are to house people that have a social housing need.

0:30:340:30:37

We're not here for people to make a profit out of us.

0:30:370:30:40

It is pure greed.

0:30:400:30:41

People can make an awful lot of money out of it,

0:30:410:30:43

but, of course, now they can also go to prison because of it.

0:30:430:30:45

Do you think a lot of people think,

0:30:450:30:47

"Got a social housing property or a council property, it's mine,

0:30:470:30:51

"it's just the council, I can do exactly what I want with it."

0:30:510:30:55

Yes, unfortunately, I feel a lot of people are of that view.

0:30:550:30:59

They consider it's like, you know, back in the 1970s is when

0:30:590:31:02

you got a social home, you had it forever

0:31:020:31:05

and you never got evicted and things are very, very different now.

0:31:050:31:08

Our next case took Katrina's team over 12 months to unravel.

0:31:080:31:12

And it involved a young woman who not only barely set foot

0:31:120:31:16

inside the property allocated to her,

0:31:160:31:18

but tried to cling onto it by falsifying documents.

0:31:180:31:22

This is Redcliffe Square, in the Earls Court area of London.

0:31:220:31:26

Once known as bedsit land, it's now an exclusive

0:31:260:31:29

and sought-after area.

0:31:290:31:30

Luke's on his way there now,

0:31:310:31:33

with housing officer Debbie who wishes to remain anonymous.

0:31:330:31:36

In March 2014,

0:31:360:31:38

Viridian Housing moved a young woman into a flat in Redcliffe Square.

0:31:380:31:43

A starter tenancy was given to a female single occupier

0:31:440:31:49

about March 2014.

0:31:490:31:51

She was nominated to us, because she was in a female hostel.

0:31:510:31:58

On the face of it, the tenant seemed like a deserving case,

0:31:590:32:02

but after a few months,

0:32:020:32:04

the neighbours reported that there was no-one living at the flat.

0:32:040:32:07

Debbie decided to investigate further.

0:32:070:32:09

You've given someone a tenancy who's in a vulnerable situation,

0:32:090:32:12

who's been living in a hostel and they appear not to be there.

0:32:120:32:15

-Well, that's what was being alleged...

-Right.

0:32:150:32:17

..after the first, sort of,

0:32:170:32:19

when the referral initially came to me.

0:32:190:32:22

I conduct background checks.

0:32:230:32:25

She wasn't showing as laying a footprint.

0:32:250:32:28

When you say footprint, you mean things like gas, electricity,

0:32:280:32:31

utilities, that kind of thing?

0:32:310:32:32

Yeah, yeah, sort of, like, showing, maybe bank statements,

0:32:320:32:35

maybe you'd move your mobile phone contracts.

0:32:350:32:38

Am I right in thinking that we are kind of seconds away from Chelsea?

0:32:380:32:43

I mean, this area is the London Borough

0:32:430:32:45

-of Kensington and Chelsea, yes.

-Incredible.

0:32:450:32:48

It's just full of incredibly tall, beautiful houses.

0:32:480:32:51

-SHE LAUGHS

-Yeah, yeah.

0:32:510:32:53

You can park here, we're going to the property

0:32:530:32:55

that's literally just over there to the other side of that square.

0:32:550:32:58

OK, so it's actually on the square?

0:32:580:32:59

-It is on the square.

-This is stunning, isn't it?

0:32:590:33:02

Yeah, it's beautiful.

0:33:020:33:03

It's a very impressive entrance, isn't it?

0:33:060:33:08

Yeah, really nice.

0:33:080:33:09

Let's go inside and have a look.

0:33:090:33:11

So, how many flats would be in here?

0:33:110:33:12

There's eight.

0:33:120:33:14

One of the first clues that the tenant

0:33:160:33:18

wasn't actually living at the property

0:33:180:33:20

came when her mail started piling up.

0:33:200:33:22

Obviously the tenant's mail is put on the hall table here

0:33:220:33:26

and it had been reported that there was uncollected mail for the tenant.

0:33:260:33:29

OK.

0:33:290:33:31

Which I saw for myself when I visited, there was a bundle.

0:33:310:33:35

OK, are you going to show me the flat?

0:33:350:33:37

-Yeah.

-Great.

0:33:370:33:38

Let's have a look.

0:33:400:33:42

What's sort of the layout here?

0:33:420:33:44

-This is the bathroom.

-OK.

0:33:440:33:46

-That's nice. Nice, high ceilings.

-Yeah.

0:33:460:33:49

And then the living room next door.

0:33:490:33:52

All right.

0:33:520:33:53

-I mean, it's a studio flat.

-It's a studio flat, yeah.

0:33:550:33:58

-So, it's living room and...

-Bedroom.

-..bedroom.

0:33:580:34:01

But it's still a good size and I can't get over the location.

0:34:010:34:04

-Well, for a single person, yeah, exactly.

-Perfect.

0:34:040:34:07

Where it is for the amount of money - great.

0:34:070:34:10

A typical studio flat on the open market in Redcliffe Square

0:34:100:34:14

would fetch up to £1,500 a month.

0:34:140:34:17

The housing association rent on this property is just £514 a month.

0:34:170:34:22

-Up here, so it's on two levels. This is the kitchen.

-Yeah.

0:34:220:34:26

-It's pretty sizeable, isn't it?

-Well, yes.

0:34:260:34:29

She had the flat, what happened in terms of her...?

0:34:290:34:33

I spoke with my manager, who sort of given the lack of contact,

0:34:330:34:38

we had people in the block saying they'd not been seen.

0:34:380:34:41

The housing officer had made visits, she'd not responded,

0:34:410:34:44

there was piles of post being left in the hallway.

0:34:440:34:48

-We decided to serve the notices.

-OK.

0:34:480:34:51

Serving a notice to quit and a notice of seeking possession

0:34:520:34:56

means the tenant has a set period of time to vacate the property.

0:34:560:34:59

If they failed to do so, then eviction proceedings will start.

0:35:010:35:04

So, when you say serve notices, that's giving the tenant,

0:35:050:35:08

your tenant the opportunity to give the flat back,

0:35:080:35:11

-because it's clear they're not using it.

-Yeah.

0:35:110:35:13

How did she react to that?

0:35:130:35:14

Well, I served the notice which has two months before it expires

0:35:140:35:19

and I literally heard from her about four days before it expired.

0:35:190:35:24

-Really?

-So, for almost two months I heard nothing

0:35:240:35:27

and then she picks the phone up.

0:35:270:35:29

What did she say?

0:35:290:35:31

She said that she had been away

0:35:310:35:33

and had to deal with a family emergency

0:35:330:35:35

and that this was her main home and that she would prove it to us.

0:35:350:35:39

I gave her the opportunity to go away and provide me

0:35:390:35:42

with utility bills, payments made, usage details from the date

0:35:420:35:47

that she moved in the flat to the date that she made contact.

0:35:470:35:51

So, the tenant came up with some e-mails that seemed to

0:35:510:35:54

indicate the services were all in hand.

0:35:540:35:57

I looked at the sort of e-mails that were being sent

0:35:570:35:59

and I queried them with the actual companies themselves directly.

0:35:590:36:03

-The e-mails had been doctored that she'd been sending to me.

-Really?

0:36:030:36:08

The tenant faked e-mails from the utilities company

0:36:080:36:12

to try and keep hold of the flat that she wasn't even living in.

0:36:120:36:16

After she'd rang me in response to the notices and that I said,

0:36:160:36:19

"This is what I want," she then got on the phone to all the utilities.

0:36:190:36:23

-Kind of...

-Saying I need the account in my name, kind of thing.

0:36:230:36:28

It's kind of quite desperate.

0:36:280:36:31

Yeah, I sort of said to her, basically,

0:36:310:36:34

"I'm fully aware of, you know, what you've done,

0:36:340:36:37

"you've doctored e-mails to make it look like you've been resident

0:36:370:36:40

"from the start date and been paying bills."

0:36:400:36:43

When you confronted her with that, was she shocked?

0:36:430:36:45

Well, this was over the phone.

0:36:450:36:47

And she was in denial, complete denial.

0:36:470:36:49

Surely the whole idea about social housing

0:36:490:36:51

-is that you actually live in it?

-And you live there. Yeah.

0:36:510:36:54

It has to be your main and principal home.

0:36:540:36:55

In fact, leaving the flat empty is a breach of the tenancy agreement

0:36:550:37:00

and it's preventing someone in need from living in it.

0:37:000:37:03

After a whole year of battling it out at court,

0:37:030:37:06

eventually the housing association won back possession of the flat

0:37:060:37:09

and the tenant was ordered to leave.

0:37:090:37:11

-This is now clearly a home to someone.

-Yeah.

0:37:110:37:14

So, you got the property back and it's being re-let to someone else?

0:37:140:37:17

Yeah, within weeks of getting the property back,

0:37:170:37:19

the new tenants moved in, made it their home.

0:37:190:37:22

That must give you amazing job satisfaction

0:37:220:37:25

to know that someone in genuine need now lives where we're standing.

0:37:250:37:28

Well, all I can say is congratulations with your tenacity.

0:37:280:37:31

-Great work, well done.

-Thank you.

0:37:310:37:33

You don't just walk through the door and say,

0:37:360:37:38

"Can I have a property, please?" And they're handing out keys.

0:37:380:37:41

To be issued that and then not use it,

0:37:410:37:42

I can't understand why people would do that.

0:37:420:37:45

The victims of social housing for me would be the people

0:37:450:37:48

that genuinely have a need for immediate social housing

0:37:480:37:51

so people that maybe need to have...be moved from a hostel

0:37:510:37:54

or maybe from a bedsit to somewhere that's more permanent

0:37:540:37:57

if they're a young family.

0:37:570:37:58

And they're not having that availability,

0:37:580:38:00

cos someone else is exploiting the system.

0:38:000:38:02

It's so valuable, this housing, that we should be very disciplined

0:38:020:38:08

about how it's used and councils should be very careful

0:38:080:38:11

about what they do.

0:38:110:38:13

I think that far too many social housing homes

0:38:130:38:16

were sold off in the past, which has left a desperate shortage now

0:38:160:38:20

and I know people who are on waiting lists,

0:38:200:38:23

so I do think it's a problem, yes.

0:38:230:38:26

This next story came to light

0:38:300:38:32

when a housing benefit claim was made from an address

0:38:320:38:35

which should have been rented out to another family entirely.

0:38:350:38:39

In fact, the family who should've been living at the flat

0:38:400:38:43

in Poplar, East London, had moved out

0:38:430:38:45

and were unlawfully subletting it.

0:38:450:38:48

This is Avril Drummond, from Poplar Harca housing association.

0:38:500:38:54

She's passionate about social housing going to the right people,

0:38:540:38:57

in other words, the people who've been waiting patiently

0:38:570:39:00

on the housing list, rather than wanting to jump the queue.

0:39:000:39:04

She first got wind of this case when a colleague examined

0:39:040:39:08

a housing benefit claim from a resident

0:39:080:39:10

in one of Poplar Harca's homes.

0:39:100:39:12

This case first came to light...

0:39:120:39:14

I received an e-mail from the rent officer

0:39:140:39:17

to advise me that a housing benefit claim had been made

0:39:170:39:20

by somebody who wasn't our lawful tenant.

0:39:200:39:23

So, I started looking into the circumstances,

0:39:230:39:25

I carried out financial checks on the person named

0:39:250:39:29

on the housing benefit application form and also on our lawful tenant.

0:39:290:39:34

And I found that our lawful tenant,

0:39:340:39:36

although she was still registered on the property, the electoral roll,

0:39:360:39:39

so was another three different people which concerned me greatly,

0:39:390:39:44

as it was only a two-bedroom flat, it's not a huge property.

0:39:440:39:47

So, I started carrying out financial checks

0:39:470:39:51

on the lawful tenant and that showed

0:39:510:39:54

that she did have a few financial links to the property,

0:39:540:39:57

but so did the person who was named on the housing benefit form.

0:39:570:40:00

Normally, you wouldn't register your bank account or credit cards

0:40:000:40:04

or apply for credit at a property you don't live at

0:40:040:40:07

as your main and principal home.

0:40:070:40:09

So, Avril dug further into the tenant's paperwork.

0:40:100:40:13

I checked back on the tenancy, there was no notification that this

0:40:130:40:17

tenant had other people living in the property with her.

0:40:170:40:21

And she was still registered there with her husband and two children.

0:40:210:40:25

So, the property would have been extremely overcrowded

0:40:250:40:29

with eight people living in a two-bedroom flat.

0:40:290:40:32

If you're a social housing tenant,

0:40:340:40:36

you're supposed to inform the council if you get married

0:40:360:40:38

or have children

0:40:380:40:41

or if there's any change

0:40:410:40:42

in the number of people

0:40:420:40:44

living in your property.

0:40:440:40:45

Once Avril was sure of her case,

0:40:490:40:51

she went to the flat and spoke to one of the people living there.

0:40:510:40:54

It turned out to be a friend of the tenant.

0:40:540:40:57

Once we were inside the property, the tenant's friend,

0:40:570:41:01

who'd been living there for years,

0:41:010:41:02

she was very helpful, very cooperative.

0:41:020:41:04

She gave us some, you know, more information, more evidence.

0:41:040:41:08

The documents the subtenant gave to Avril

0:41:090:41:12

showed she was paying £350 a month in rent to the official tenant.

0:41:120:41:16

With other names also associated with the property,

0:41:190:41:23

Avril decided she had sufficient evidence to start the formal process

0:41:230:41:26

of getting the flat back.

0:41:260:41:28

And allocating it to someone else.

0:41:280:41:31

We believe that the property was being, possibly,

0:41:330:41:36

misused for up to four years.

0:41:360:41:38

Putting everything together, the financial evidence,

0:41:380:41:41

the evidence, the witness statement from the tenant's friend,

0:41:410:41:44

her bank statements, also the pictures of inside the property.

0:41:440:41:50

That, in whole, gave us, we believe, enough evidence

0:41:500:41:53

to warrant serving notices on the property, which is what we then did.

0:41:530:41:57

Once Avril had told the official tenant how much evidence she had,

0:41:570:42:01

the tenant didn't take up the option to go to court,

0:42:010:42:05

but handed the keys back.

0:42:050:42:07

The property has been reallocated to a local family in genuine need

0:42:070:42:11

off the waiting list, which is absolutely fantastic.

0:42:110:42:14

You know, every single family that's re-homed, you know,

0:42:140:42:16

is a job well done, as far as I'm concerned.

0:42:160:42:18

So, absolutely over the moon

0:42:180:42:20

that a deserving family has now been re-housed.

0:42:200:42:23

It really is down to the hard work and tenacity of housing fraud

0:42:270:42:31

officers that tenancy cheats are being stopped in their tracks.

0:42:310:42:35

And those properties can then be given to people in genuine need.

0:42:350:42:40

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