Episode 7 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.

..reclaim properties...

Anybody in?

..and give them to families in genuine need.

All of those keys are yours.

Oh, 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, a tenancy cheat with multiple properties,

whose housing fraud landed her a £160,000 fine and a jail term.

I don't think for a minute that when she came into the room

that she ever suspected this was particularly serious.

A fabulous flat in one of London's busiest tourist hotspots

is ruined in a subletting scandal.

-Oh, my God. Wow!

-Yeah.

Tenant's taken it upon herself to knock out the wall

-and install some saloon doors.

-What is that?

And we'll see how those who abuse the system

don't get away with it for long.

When I showed the judge and the court all of this evidence,

it was pretty overwhelming.

With property at such a premium, more and more people

are turning to social housing to put a roof above their heads.

But despite such high demand,

existing stock isn't always being used properly.

Yet, thanks to new laws

and the tireless work of council and housing association officers,

the crackdown on housing fraud

can now see tenancy cheats end up behind bars.

Our first case came to light

when neighbours complained of a fight in the street...

This street. This is a story of a tenant who used an especially lovely

flat in a tourist hotspot as a cash cow and then trashed the place.

Camden in North London.

With its famous market and lock, not to mention bars and cafes,

it's one of the biggest tourist destinations in the capital.

To have a housing association flat here

is to have done very well in the lottery of housing.

So, it's all the more surprising the tenant of this flat

threw it away by misusing it.

The official tenant had been living here for more than a decade

when suspicions that she was unlawfully subletting

first came to light in 2014, when two sub-tenants were seen

fighting in the street over their deposit money.

Shereen Horne is a housing officer at Circle Housing.

She tells Luke how she was first alerted to the problem.

I received a telephone call from one of the residents,

who was quite concerned because there was a dispute outside the property.

-Right.

-And when they went to find out what was going on,

-what they had found is that the subtenants...

-Right.

..were arguing amongst one another

about the returns of deposit money that they had paid.

Shereen was keen to know exactly who these subtenants were

and who they were paying their money to,

so she decided to pay them a visit,

where she discovered her tenant had been quite the opportunist.

They explained that basically they were a tenant at the property and

they were trying to get back a £1,000 deposit that they had paid.

-OK.

-They also explained that the landlord, who was our resident...

-Yeah.

-..had informed them that in order to get back that deposit,

they would need to find another resident to...

rent that room to.

So, the impetus is for the resident, if you - or the subtenant -

if you want back your £1,000 deposit,

you need to get another person into that room and you can get back...

-get their deposit.

-Sure.

-So that would be your refund.

-Shocking, shocking, shocking.

-Yeah.

It seemed Shereen's tenant was not only unlawfully subletting her home,

e-mails between her and the sub tenant suggested she was actually

getting them to manage the property for her as well...

The reason for that was that Shereen's official tenant...

..was in Brazil.

Actually, she had moved...

Not moved to Brazil but she was spending a lot of time in Brazil,

which was a breach of the terms and conditions of the tenancy.

-Sure.

-She didn't inform us and she's not using the property

as her main and principal home.

Shereen could see her tenant was in South America

by looking at her social media use.

We had a look at social networks.

She also had a picture of herself in Brazil on the MySpace ad and also

we could see that monies that she was receiving

from rents were actually being paid into an account in Brazil.

She managed her social housing flat online from a holiday lets website,

and she left nothing to chance.

So, here we can see that she's got an advert here.

-OK.

-Erm...

So, this is an advert that she's placed

-in the public domain...

-Mm-hmm.

-..to sublet the property.

The whole of the property - she says there's a whole apartment to let.

Wow.

She's got prices for individual rooms, prices for cleaning,

prices if you want a friend to stay over.

-Really?

-Yeah. So, she was renting it almost as if it was a little B&B.

She's even offering discounts...

-Wow.

-..for staying more than six months.

The price is £2,250 per month for the whole of the property.

You can do a short stay where you can stay for a few days

and I think that was £650.

-Sounds like a hotel.

-Yeah. So, she had a good little scheme.

So, the tenant was advertising the flat for £2,250 a month,

but the actual rent was nowhere near that amount.

The monthly rent to us was £635.

Right, so she's making between about £1,500 and £1,800.

-Yeah.

-And it was this ad that first attracted the two subtenants

found fighting in the street.

Shereen went to interview them and they both gave witness statements.

They were renting the rooms unwittingly, thinking that our

-tenant actually owned the property and everything was legitimate.

-OK.

It wasn't until I contacted them that they realised what was going on.

So Shereen brought in the local authority, Camden Council,

who have greater resources, to help investigate the case.

It was clear the tenant was receiving rent into a bank account

in Brazil from the subtenants in her Camden flat.

Shereen had enough evidence to act.

We did decide to go for a criminal prosecution.

-Right.

-Because we had so much evidence, so, yeah,

we decided to go for a crim...

Well, Camden decided to go for a criminal prosecution.

We decided to go for the civil action, possession action...

-Right.

-..based on probability.

And what she did was she made an agreement with us,

out of court, to return the property.

But the tenant went back on her promise,

and failed to return the keys.

Shereen was forced to bring in the bailiffs, but she wasn't prepared

for what they found when they first entered the flat.

Well, Luke, this is the property.

-OK.

-Three double bedrooms, and where we're standing

is the fight that brought it to our attention in the first place.

-Right.

-So, this is where the subtenants were actually arguing

over the deposit and so on.

Obviously, this is an amazing location. I'm desperate to get

-inside to take a look. Shall we head in?

-Let's go and have a look.

-Cool.

The flat had been totally trashed -

Shereen took these photos of the scene.

Bearing in mind, we have done a clearance.

Yeah. So, we don't quite know...

So, all the clutter that you saw in the pictures aren't...

-Isn't there any more.

-OK.

The mess might have been cleared,

but that's only revealed more significant damage to the property.

So, this is the kitchen area.

-It's massive, isn't it? It's really big.

-It is, it's a large kitchen.

The problem here is the residents installed their own kitchen units.

-Yeah.

-So, we are going to have to rip all of this out

-and install a new kitchen.

-Normally, tenants aren't allowed to just rip

kitchens out and put their own thing in, are they?

What they would have to do is put in a request...

-Right.

-And send the insurance details of the works and...

But, normally, we wouldn't allow a resident

just to rip out a kitchen and put their own in.

So, Luke, this is the bathroom.

As you can see, the residents ripped out the bathroom installed

by Circle 33 and have installed their own bathroom...

-or shower facility.

-Of sorts.

I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry in here.

She's certainly got her own taste, hasn't she?

Definitely. She just went ahead and ripped out all of the appliances

that we had installed, and put in her own.

As you can see, there's lots of graffiti on the walls.

-That's pretty...pretty grim, isn't it?

-Yeah, it is.

-Oh, my God. Wow.

-Yeah.

Tenant's taken it upon herself to knock out the wall

and install some saloon doors.

-What is that?

-Yeah.

So, she's kind of removed doors...

-Yeah.

-Put on these...

-..things.

-Yeah.

She's treated it like it's actually her own flat, like she owns it.

Like she owns it, yes, definitely, I would say so.

Especially as she's been renting it out as well.

A lot of people wouldn't think this was your average social housing.

-And it's got a garden...

-Yeah.

-..in the middle of Camden Town.

-Yes.

-So, prime, prime, prime property.

Definitely. Well sought-after and three bedrooms, as well.

Such large properties are highly sought-after for families,

especially as this one has a garden.

Shereen is eager to get it back, so she can reallocate it.

I guess the next thing is that this will be refurbished.

It's going to be refurbished -

we'll have to fit a new kitchen, a new bathroom.

Even putting to one side the unlawful subletting of this property,

the changes that have been made are a breach of tenancy

and will cost a substantial amount to put right.

Our surveyor has estimated a £20,000 cost...

-God.

-..to get this property back up to scratch.

Three months on, and the tenant's whereabouts are unknown.

But the council is pursuing criminal proceedings, and the flat

is well on the way to becoming a place for someone to call home.

Our contractors have done a great job in clearing the garden space

and the property, so now we're just going to focus on getting

the works done, changing the kitchens, changing the bathrooms

and getting the property back into the state

that it was when the tenant moved in.

We haven't got a family allocated to the property yet

because of the extensive works that have to be carried out.

We're just going to crack on,

get the work done and have a family in here.

It's a beautiful property in a really nice location

and in a good neighbourhood.

The residents are really nice here,

so somebody would really make use of this property.

I think social housing is very, very important.

If you look around here, you've got people living out on the street.

Some of them do it by choice but some of them don't do it by choice.

There's an amazing amount of money that people have to pay

to live in private rented accommodation.

So, yes, social housing is very, very important.

We can't neglect people just because we've got money.

There are people that need housing -

some of them work, some of them don't work,

but housing is a basic...

Shelter is a basic human right.

I think that they've sold off a huge amount of social housing and never

replaced it, and there is absolutely nowhere for people to go any more.

The population is increasing and the government are not...

..acknowledging that. They're not building to replace what's gone

already and they're certainly not increasing the stock.

I think there's a strain on social housing -

probably more in London because there's just too many people.

I think that's just what it is, it's just too many people,

we're on an island and there's just not enough houses and maybe some

people are sitting in social houses that shouldn't really be there.

In the battle against tenancy fraud,

some councils and housing associations

are taking a proactive approach.

In December, Lewes in East Sussex

launched a no-questions-asked key amnesty.

Anyone who was misusing their property could hand in the keys

without legal action being taken against them.

With a shortage of housing stock,

and over 1,700 people on their waiting list,

any reclaimed properties will be quickly put to good use.

And in Cornwall, another recent key amnesty

led to the recovery of 16 properties

ranging from one-bedroom flats

to three-bedroom houses.

The amount of unlawful profits some social housing tenants are making is shocking.

In our next case,

the tenant was renting out her council flat using a middleman,

and charging the subtenant three times the amount

she was paying in rent.

This is Biani Gonzalez. She's at the heart of an £11,000

unlawful subletting fraud in Clapham, South London.

In 2002, she moved into this two-bedroom flat on the large

Poynders Garden council estate with her two children.

But in September 2013,

a routine check showed something wasn't quite right.

Ben Marshall from Lambeth Council investigated the case.

A tenancy inspection by one of the council's housing officers

found there were five adults living in the lounge and two bedrooms,

and not one of them was the official tenant.

According to council records,

it should have been Biani Gonzalez and her two children in residence.

Luke has been finding out more.

-One of the housing officers went to this property...

-Mm-hmm.

..and found some random people in it that weren't the tenant.

There were two bedrooms. There were a couple in one bedroom

and there was a man in another bedroom, but the living room

was also being used as a bedroom and had a lock on it, and another couple

were living in there. So, immediate alarm bells,

-and immediately, it's obvious it's sublet.

-Sure.

In this type of case,

you could assume it would be the official tenant who was subletting.

But one of the couples that were in the flat told investigators

it wasn't Gonzalez they were paying their rent to,

but a third party who was acting as an agent for her.

It's a really interesting one this, because what really transpired

is that the property was sublet through an...

-effectively an agent.

-OK.

Miss Gonzalez sublet the property for £1,200 a month.

-OK.

-Her rent's about 420.

But then he's gone on to sublet it further to individuals.

So, subletting the rooms,

the two bedrooms, and subletting the living room as well.

-OK.

-For even more than £1,200.

-Right.

It was evident that Gonzalez had some questions to answer,

so the team brought her into the office

for a formal interview under caution.

Her first reaction in the interview was, "No, I'm not subletting it.

"It's just a friend. He's abused my trust whilst I was on holiday

"for a few weeks and I had no idea

"that these strange people were in the property."

But the agent told quite a different story.

But then he's told us, "No, no, it's a business arrangement.

"We met each other through mutual acquaintances

"and it was very clearly a business arrangement."

But Gonzalez immediately took steps to cover her tracks.

And then what happened after the interview with her,

she then came and moved back into the flat herself, back into

one of the bedrooms herself - not with her children, just her -

to be able to come back and say,

"No, no, look, Council, Lambeth Council,

"I do live here and it's all a...it's all a tragic mistake."

The agent, meanwhile, was quite willing to tell the authorities

exactly what Gonzalez had been up to.

And he even provided the tenancy agreement

and proof of his bank statements

to show the money that he'd been paying her.

These bank statements were just the start.

Ben and his investigative team

started to build a substantial file of evidence on the Gonzalez case.

And the star exhibit was a little pink book

provided by one of the subletting couples.

I think one of the key things that we came across

was when me met one of the couples in one of the bedrooms...

were from New Zealand.

The lady that was there provided us with her...

her rent book, effectively.

Oh, wow. This is a very old-fashioned way of...

-Absolutely.

-OK.

But it...it names her and it says how much they've paid

every two weeks, their deposit.

Wow. Minimum stay, three months.

Notice after three months, two weeks in advance, two weeks' deposit -

£270.

The official rent on this property was around £420 a month.

This couple alone were paying £540 a month,

and there were three other subtenants paying, too.

And all the dates - very, very clear there.

So, immediately, you can tell that this rent that this lady was paying

covers the council rent in its entirety - more than.

Yep. And that is just one room.

That's just one of the rooms.

This rent book and a flurry of texts from the occupants to the agent

showed considerable sums of money changing hands.

Ben's next move was to take a deeper look

into the finances of Biani Gonzalez.

I felt confident that we had all the evidence we needed for subletting,

but obviously, getting hold of the financial aspect

-is really important too.

-Yeah.

-And so, absolutely,

we went for bank statements,

and we got all her bank statements... Relevant...

So we have something here we can have a look at?

-And, if you see down there...

-Wow, that's detailed.

-..this side.

This is various cash going in,

money going in, and it clearly shows that she's receiving the money.

So, the evidence was looking damning for Gonzalez.

Ben also then looked into the agent, but in the end,

decided not to pursue him.

In the end, we decided in the public interest

that we didn't have sufficient evidence to go after him.

He'd been a relatively willing witness in that he'd given us his

bank statements and the tenancy agreement

-and bits and pieces like that.

-Right.

The council now had enough evidence to take Gonzalez to civil court.

We went to trial at the civil court and again, she defended herself

and said, "No, no, it's not a sublet, it's all a mistake."

But when I showed the judge and the court all of this evidence,

it was pretty overwhelming and actually, the morning of the trial,

she said, "Yeah, you're right, it's a terrible situation. I'm sorry."

So, she confessed. But once in court,

Gonzalez came up with an explanation of why she'd done it.

She explained to the judge in the civil hearing

that she'd had to go through this whole subletting it

to be able to afford the deposit for her Right to Buy mortgage.

She'd not told us anything about this beforehand,

not at the interview under caution,

not in any of the previous correspondence.

Just, on that day, she kind of saw this mounted against her

and I think just let it all out.

The judge was not impressed.

He awarded the Council immediate possession of the flat

and an Unlawful Profit Order of £11,500.

Not only that,

but Gonzalez was ordered to pay a further £12,000 costs.

The judge awarded us the property back immediately

and there is a new family in there now.

Once a property goes under the Right to Buy, it's gone forever.

So, amazing work for you guys to make sure that didn't happen

and, indeed, to get the property back.

But the judge in the civil court felt that the fraud was so serious,

there was also a criminal case to answer.

So he referred the case to the magistrates' court

for a further hearing.

As Biani Gonzalez goes to criminal court, we find out her fate later.

I would expect her to give an indication today

of whether she's going to plead guilty or not.

Subletting is something I am totally against.

If you've been given a chance in life,

it is unfair then to rent that room out to somebody else.

Just because we've got a shortage of housing,

it's a really lucrative business.

If you've got a spare room or if you can potentially get a property which

you can rent out, you can know that you can make a lot of money off it.

So... Money. Temptation for most things.

Let's be clear about this -

I don't think it's a class thing or a social thing.

I don't think that bankers came from deprived backgrounds -

they were quite happy to steal people's money.

Why would you expect that you won't get a proportion of people

from any social group who would be the same?

For me, people that illegally sublet their council accommodation,

in the first place do not need it.

They never needed it in the first place, so,

in my view, that is fraud

and it's morally wrong.

In Barnet, a 55-year-old singer and musician claimed

she was still living in her council home,

despite moving in to her husband's five-bedroomed house.

An unannounced visit to the property by investigators

found her son's girlfriend, who claimed she was staying there.

A further look around revealed two letters addressed to two other

people living at the flat, who weren't family members.

The tenant went to court and was found guilty of two counts of fraud

for illegally keeping hold of her council property.

Our next case is about a woman who applied for, and got,

not one but two council properties,

and she wasn't living in either of them.

This is Doris Lawson, a council tenant since 1994,

and a woman caught with one council property she fraudulently bought

at a knock-down price under the Right to Buy scheme,

and one she illegally sublet,

all the while living with her husband at a third address.

Nigel Brown is the anti-fraud manager

of the Royal Borough of Greenwich in South London

and the man responsible for investigating the case.

In December 1994, Doris Lawson claimed a one-bedroom flat

from the Royal Borough of Greenwich -

quite rightly, no problems with that whatsoever.

Here's her tenancy agreement here.

This property, in 2008, was due to be demolished,

so she was invited to be rehoused.

She took that opportunity and we gave her

a nice two-bedroom flat at Southend Close.

The tenancy agreement was dated on the 30th of March, 2009.

All seemed above board with Nigel's tenant, Miss Lawson,

but a national data-matching exercise by the government

set alarm bells ringing.

Basically, what that is, is central government collects data

from local authorities and then matches the output

and informs boroughs if there's a problem with matches.

The data-matching exercise basically alerted us to the fact that

Doris Lawson also had a link to an address in the Lewisham area.

Keen to know if Doris Lawson was linked to more than one home,

Nigel began running checks on her name

against her flat in Southend Close.

She got registered to vote from that address,

so she's now entitled to vote in any election that comes up,

and that was put in every year. Bank account's at the address,

and other usual things that people have,

so by all intents and purposes, one would think that

she's actually resident at Southend Close and nowhere else.

Next, Nigel ran the same checks against the flat flagged up

by the data match, in St John's Vale in Lewisham.

It looked as if somehow Doris was in two places at the same time.

Once again, her name comes up and you can see that she too has

bank accounts there and the usual credit that people have -

credit cards and insurances and what have you.

So, again, you would suspect that she is living at St John's Vale.

But what Nigel uncovered next would add even more weight to his case.

Miss Lawson didn't just have another property in Lewisham,

she was actually the outright owner.

We obtained a land registry,

which shows her to be the sole owner of this address

since the 10th of May, 2004.

Contact was made with the London Borough of Lewisham

and they confirmed to us that not only do they have a record that

Miss Lawson owns the property at St John's Vale,

but that she also purchased this property from them

under the Right to Buy in 2004.

And they provided us with a copy

of her Right to Buy application for this address.

Again, she states on this form that St John's Vale

is her only place of living,

her main and principal home, and that she has no other accommodation.

There's no mention on this form at all of her property

with the Royal Borough of Greenwich.

And to make matters worse,

Doris Lawson was saving a fortune in the process.

The London Borough of Lewisham then provided to us evidence

that Doris Lawson had purchased St John's Vale in 2004...

for £102,000.

The property was valued at 140,000, and under the Right to Buy scheme,

they gave her a discount of £38,000 off the cost price.

So, in effect, she bought that property,

a very nice two-bedroom flat in St John's Vale in Blackheath,

for £102,000.

But it didn't end there.

With Nigel on her case,

Doris Lawson's name cropped up at a third property.

Further enquiries into Doris Lawson found that she was

actually working as a contractor,

and they held her home address as an address in Belvedere.

Enquiries on this address in Belvedere identified

that it was owned by her husband - it was a lovely three-bedroom house

owned by her husband for many years. And evidence pointed that she would

have been living there herself for many years. So in effect, not even

living at the council tenancy in the Royal Borough of Greenwich,

nor at the address she owns in the London Borough of Lewisham.

But it turned out other people clearly were.

We visited both addresses, at Southend Close and St John's Vale.

At the Southend Close, we found that there was tenants there who paid

Doris Lawson a regular monthly rent. We also found there were tenants

living at the Lewisham address, which was fine,

because that property in Blackheath was hers, she'd bought it,

so she was fine to be a landlady.

She'd never, ever told us that she was in fact

the tenant at that property.

And had we known that in April 2009,

we would not have housed her at the Royal Borough of Greenwich -

she would have had to gone and live in the Lewisham property.

Doris Lawson had fraudulently obtained her tenancy in Greenwich

and her Right to Buy property in neighbouring Lewisham,

building herself a property portfolio

and subletting the properties out.

With this case looking rock-solid,

Nigel was ready to bring her in for formal questioning.

I don't think for a minute that when she came into the room

that she ever suspected this was particularly serious.

But she gave a "no comment" interview to the whole process,

the whole interview questions that were put to her.

So Nigel took matters to the next level.

Miss Lawson was summoned to the magistrates' court,

but the court deemed her case to be so serious,

they immediately escalated it up to Crown Court,

where Doris felt the full weight of the law.

She was sentenced to two years and four months in prison.

But, as Miss Lawson had defrauded the council out of so much money,

Nigel didn't want to leave it there.

He wanted to claw back for the public purse

the proceeds of her crimes, and his determination paid off in what was

one of the biggest settlements his borough has ever won.

It was totally clear that she had gained criminally

from her actions by getting the fraudulent Right to Buy.

Her property at St John's Vale was now worth considerably more.

In fact, she had equity of about £165,000 on that property now.

We then ran with a Proceeds Of Crime action against her and jointly

between the two boroughs, we got a judgment and a confiscation order -

albeit she's still in prison - for £163,000,

which has now been paid in full as she sold the property.

Miss Lawson didn't expect this would happen.

She's now in prison - she's serving two years and four months.

She's £163,000 down from her future nest egg,

and she's now got a criminal record.

I think if you're found to be sort of renting out a house that you're

renting for not very much for huge amounts, there should be...

There should be serious consequences for that because that's illegal and

also it's just quite abhorrent behaviour, like, you know,

you're making a huge profit off other people's desperation to live somewhere.

Well, it should be a heavy fine.

And if it's done regularly, probably a term of imprisonment.

Once someone is found out to be subletting, the tenant who is

going to suffer should be evicted straight away and the

person whose name is on the tenancy agreement should also be evicted

straight away and banned from getting other tenancy agreements

throughout the United Kingdom.

Earlier, Luke was finding out about the case of Biani Gonzalez who,

with the help of an agent, made thousands of pounds

subletting her two-bedroom flat in South London.

It was very clearly a business arrangement.

And he even provided the tenancy agreement and proof of his

bank statements to show the money that he'd been paying her.

Bank statements and a pink rent book owned by one of the unsuspecting

subtenants gave investigator Ben Marshall the crucial evidence

he needed to get his property back.

When I showed the judge and the court all of this evidence,

it was pretty overwhelming.

14 months later, the keys are back in the council's hands

and a new family has moved into the property.

Miss Gonzalez is back in court,

this time for a criminal hearing at Camberwell Green Magistrates'.

She's charged with illegal subletting and attempting to

fraudulently obtain a Right to Buy property and she could face jail.

Today, Luke joins investigator Ben Marshall to see what happens.

It's the magistrates' court so I would expect her to give an

indication today of whether she's going to plead guilty or not.

-OK.

-But really what this comes down to is whether the magistrates feel

that they've got sufficient powers to deal with the matter or whether

they think it's so serious that they need to send it to the Crown Court.

-OK, let's head in and see what happens.

-Yep.

Gonzalez pleaded guilty to illegally subletting her flat and attempting

to fraudulently obtain a Right to Buy property.

It didn't take long for the magistrates to come to a decision.

The case was referred up yet again, this time to Crown Court,

where a more serious punishment could be imposed.

I'm really pleased that it's in the court system now

and that's taken some months to get here.

So I'm pleased that we're in the court,

I'm pleased with the outcome, really.

-We're going to Crown Court...

-Mm-hmm.

-..so the judge has

looked at the matter, he's taken into consideration the possible loss

-of almost 100,000 in the Right to Buy...

-Yeah.

..the attempted fraud part of it

as well as the tenancy fraud subletting part of it.

The reason that the magistrates send it to Crown Court is that the

Crown Court can impose those harsher sentences.

For all your work, your case files, your investigations,

you must be really happy that it's...that it's gone this far.

Yeah, I am, I'm pleased. We've got the property back,

another family's in the property, that's great,

that's water under the bridge so to speak.

And now we can concentrate on the criminal prosecution

and really finalise this case, hopefully soon.

Four weeks later, after a year and a half's investigation,

Biani Gonzalez was sentenced to a six-month prison sentence,

suspended for 12 months at the Inner London Crown Court.

Personally, I live in a social housing at the moment.

And a few people around I know live in social housing.

I think it's an absolutely wonderful system.

It sort of meets the gap from people that aren't able at this present

moment for whatever reason that cannot buy their own home, you know.

I think it's a wonderful, wonderful system.

It's been five years of trying to find somewhere to live that I can

actually afford. I've lived in private rented places that finish

and without social housing I'd be... I'm going to spend the

rest of my life moving every six months. It's a nightmare.

For me to be able to be in social housing is...

I feel very grateful for it.

Cos I wouldn't be able to work in London and...and live the life I'm

living near my family, so I'm very grateful for it.

The UK is in the grip of a housing shortage.

By 2008,

the number of new homes being built had fallen to its lowest level

since 1924 and it's failed to recover since.

To help alleviate the shortage,

local councils are cracking down hard on tenancy fraud.

In London, the Borough of Camden undertook a tenancy audit

of their entire housing stock to try and weed out

anyone misusing their properties.

And in Kent, authorities used a £480,000 government grant

to help get back their exploited properties.

The funds helped to set up a new data-sharing partnership across

all of the county's local authorities and the police,

with forecast savings of £4 million of taxpayers' money.

In Oxford, a team of housing officers is responsible

for monitoring the city's 7,500 council properties,

right down to how often the tenants use their key fobs.

With so many properties on their books

and over 3,000 households on their waiting list,

it's vital Oxford City Council make sure

their housing stock is being used by the people who need it most.

The tenancy fraud team here

has dedicated intelligence-gathering officers,

whose sole job it is to collect and examine

any information they receive.

We're quite unique.

Not a lot of local authorities have specialist intel teams.

But it frees up the investigators to do the work

that they're trained to do.

And it means that we're very focused

on intelligence gathering techniques.

As well as tip-offs from neighbours and other residents,

the team also use CCTV and electronic entry systems

to look for unusual usage.

The fob entry systems keep a record of every entry into a building

made by the occupants. Working out a weekly average can give

investigators a sense of whether there are perhaps too many people

living in a property, or even if it's been abandoned.

What we're looking for is people that are abusing our housing stock

and quite often making large amounts of money on the back of that and we

want to make sure that all of our properties are filled

by Oxford residents who need that housing,

who can't afford private rented accommodation.

And every investigation that we conclude

and every property that we recover

means that a local family who need housing can be housed.

The intel team has drawn up a list of the top 40 properties

that have markers for unusual use.

Now housing investigators can make

personal calls to carry out further checks.

The list that we provided today to the officers is the top 40

of ones that we think are either likely to have nobody there

or likely to have somebody there who shouldn't be.

It's mid-morning.

Two teams of investigators are out and about in Oxford,

checking on the list.

At their first stop,

investigation officers Dan Barker and Robert Ducker have received

information that the tenant may have a partner living in -

not an issue in itself unless the tenant

is claiming benefits as a single person.

-Hi, there.

-Hi, there.

-From the council.

-We're looking for

-BLEEP.

-Is she at home?

She's not here at the moment?

Do you know what time she's going to be back?

About three o'clock.

-That's great. OK, we'll pop back then. Thank you.

-All right.

This one was some intelligence we'd received from the tenancy

management officer suggested it was possible living together...

Undeclared partner living at the property. And that's the description

of the gentleman who's answered the door matches the partner perfectly.

So I shall be feeding that back

and requesting benefits do a review on the account.

The tenant's not at home and the occupant

matches the description of the new partner.

This first flat on Ben Simmons' and Ken Hodge's list is showing

very low fob usage, which means it could have been abandoned.

They've had their Christmas decorations on there, I think.

This one's quite a positive result for us. The fob usage on the

property indicates that she wasn't living at the address any more.

There's two fob uses in three months, which to enter the building

every day would obviously build up higher than that.

That, including the rent arrears that have built up,

and then information from neighbours has just suggested that

she's actually moved her stuff out of the property now.

Dan and Robert also have a possible abandonment on their list.

The intel suggested that we wouldn't find anyone at the property,

and that's she's possibly left the district altogether

and is living elsewhere in the country.

Yeah, possible case of abandonment, you know.

Abandoning a social housing property is a breach of tenancy

and the official tenant could be prosecuted.

We take the abandonment of council properties quite seriously

and we could have another family living in that property who are

currently in temporary accommodation or living in unfit conditions.

They could be living here quite happily and have a nice,

safe place and a new home to live in.

Next on Ben and Ken's list is a flat which has a lot of fob usage,

which could indicate extra occupants.

Richard, how many fobs do you have to get into the address?

-Just the one.

-Just the one fob?

Well, I've got a spare over at my parents'.

You've got a spare at your parents'? And are you the only person that lives here?

-I am, yes.

-You are.

So, the reason we've knocked on your door is because there is

quite high usage on your fob, if you're saying

you're the only person that lives here.

My parents only live over here so I'm in and out, so...

-Right, OK, fine.

-I don't really...

I don't really see why it would show up as more than normal.

For the average single person,

your usage is probably one and a half more...

One and a half per day more than the average.

-So, that's why we check it out.

-OK.

So, no problems there.

Back with Dan and Robert and another possible abandonment.

-Hi, there.

-Hello.

-We're from the...

-But this time, the tenant's in.

We're just here to do a quick tenancy update with you.

Have you not put the heating on?

She's been away from the flat as her partner has been in hospital.

But Dan and Robert find that the flat is freezing cold.

-Did you say your heating's not working?

-No.

-No, none of it?

But you've reported it, have you?

-Yes.

-OK.

-Right, I'll check that when we get back.

-All right.

-Thank you very much for your time.

-Thank you.

-Cheers.

-Thanks very much indeed. Bye.

-Bye-bye.

I think there are potentially some welfare issues that we need to look

into in terms of her heating didn't appear to be working and she says

she's reported this to the council but when we get back to the office,

I want to make sure that that has been done, and that it's raised as a

priority job because, you know, that flat was absolutely freezing and

there's no way she should be living in those kind of conditions.

The teams spend the rest of the day

checking the remaining properties on their top 40 list.

That's it. Last one.

Four weeks later, and Dan has been following up on the door knocks.

First, the tenant with the freezing cold flat

has had her heating repaired.

On the tenancy audit, several flats were suspected of being abandoned.

One of them is indeed empty.

The team attempted to get in touch with the tenant, but just

a few days later, the keys to the property showed up in the post.

It may not seem like much return for a day's pounding the stairways,

but to one lucky family it means the world.

With social housing in such short supply,

the battle to crack down on tenancy cheats is more important than ever.

And thanks to the hard work of so many housing fraud officers,

more and more properties are being put back in the hands

of those who really need them.