Episode 1 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.

Millions of families across the UK are struggling to find affordable housing.

So, this is my front room and my bedroom together.

Many are living in temporary or overcrowded conditions,

desperate for somewhere decent to live.

This is our room where we sleep and this is what we've got at the minute.

We can't really call it our home.

But some social housing tenants are abusing the system,

holding on to properties they no longer need.

When somebody applies for housing,

you expect them to live in the property and when they don't,

it does start to take the mickey.

Or even worse - making a small fortune by illegally subletting them.

He was charging beyond £1,500 a month.

He exploited this completely to his advantage.

So, I'm with housing investigators cracking down on tenancy cheats.

What a waste.

If you want to commit tenancy fraud, don't bother coming here.

Reclaiming properties...

I need to speak to you, please.

They've seen an opportunity and they think they're not going to get caught.

..and giving them to families in genuine need.

That's how a council house should be.

It should be loved and looked after.

This is Council House Crackdown.

Tonight...

an undercover sting exposes a £150,000 benefit swindle...

You just don't expect someone to be this brazen.

..and unearths an astonishing attempt at tenancy fraud.

I think the only thing that's true in this application is her name.

The whole thing in this form is completely made up.

Yeah, a complete load of tosh.

The hunt for a tenancy cheat after a decade of deception.

There's the possibility that he could've approached an organised crime group.

If people are willing to pay that money,

they will be able to acquire false identity documents.

And the council tenant who poses as a landlord to con an innocent

couple out of thousands of pounds.

It was clear to us, as investigators, that the property

had indeed been sub-let.

And that the sub-tenant and her family had very much been duped.

This is the lovely seaside resort of Broadstairs in Kent and it was here

that council investigators embarked on a three-month surveillance

operation that helped uncover a £150,000 fraud

and an audacious attempt to obtain a highly sought-after social housing property.

This lady, struggling into the Royal Borough of Greenwich Council offices,

is 56-year-old Lisa White.

Mrs White was completely disabled, unable to walk unaided,

needed an oxygen tank and on one occasion she had told the medical team here

in the social services that she only had three years to live.

Lisa White is in the process of applying to Greenwich

for a specially adapted council property.

What she doesn't realise is that she's already under investigation by

Greenwich Council's fraud team.

The story began three months earlier. Greenwich

is handsome borough on the banks of the River Thames which boasts a

wealth of history and heritage.

But at any time there can be up to 16,000 people on the social housing waiting list here.

Counter-fraud manager Nigel Brown works for the Royal Borough of Greenwich.

When the team carried out a routine check of all their benefit claimants,

Lisa White was on the list.

In total, she was receiving about £600, £700 a week in various benefits.

They did a financial review on her account to make sure that she was still

entitled to the money that was being paid to her.

A large proportion of the benefits Lisa White received was to pay

for full-time disability care.

But when authorities examined invoices from her carer,

they discovered that he was living 70 miles away from her in Broadstairs, Kent.

I'm no expert on travel, but I know that if I was to be travelling from

Broadstairs every day to come and care for Mrs White every day,

as she was reporting to be done, that would be a journey and a half.

It would take you longer to get up here every day than it would to do the work,

so that just really wasn't feasible.

Mrs White's file was passed on to Nigel's fraud team and amongst all

the paperwork, one name stood out.

On here, it shows that her carer is Andrew White and what we found was,

when we did a credit check on Mr White...

..it became apparent that he had various links to Lisa White, so they

appeared to be maybe together in some way.

And we found that,

yes, he was related, he was her husband and they had married in 1984.

When investigators analysed Andrew White's property records,

they made a shocking discovery.

We then looked at the address that we had held for him in Broadstairs

and we found that in July 2007

both he and Mrs White had purchased a property on a mortgage and they

were, by all effects, by all we could see,

living in Broadstairs as a couple.

Lisa White had told authorities that she was disabled and struggling with

an elderly mother in a one-bedroomed council flat in Greenwich.

However, it was becoming clear that Lisa White wasn't living

in London but residing in Broadstairs.

When investigators dug deeper,

the evidence suggested that it wasn't just her living arrangements

that she'd been lying about.

We did some more checks and it soon came up that Lisa White was connected,

not only to the address that she was living at with her husband,

but also linked to the Bandstand in Broadstairs,

and also the White House Cafe.

During the spring and summer,

the Bandstand Kiosk and the White House Cafe in the centre of Broadstairs

are thriving businesses, serving locals and tourists alike.

A quick check online suggested that these flourishing

businesses were run by none other than Lisa and Andrew White.

We found several online reviews in relation to how Lisa White

and Andrew White, husband and wife, were together and running this

business and had done for many years,

so of course we were thinking, if this lady is as bad as she seems,

ie, she couldn't lift a cup of tea or walk unaided or would need a

wheelchair to be outside to manoeuvre herself around,

how could she be running a cafe and a bandstand?

Since 2009, Mrs White had been claiming disability benefits

and high rate income support

along with financial support for medical prescriptions and a host

of disability care payments.

In total, authorities calculated that Lisa White may have fraudulently claimed

more than £150,000 in unentitled benefits.

We needed to look closer to see if we were being defrauded completely,

and that's what we did.

We applied to the Magistrates' Court for surveillance and we were agreed

on a period of three months to undertake surveillance down in Broadstairs.

Later...

It all happened, started happening very quickly.

..a surveillance team begins to gather shocking evidence against Lisa White.

I could have fell off the chair, really,

because you just don't expect someone to be this brazen.

It was like we had hit a gold mine.

In some cases,

tenancy cheats are identified and brought to justice in a matter of months.

In others it could take years. But however long it takes,

the message from housing investigators is clear.

There is no hiding place.

They will track you down and they will get those properties back.

This photo belongs to Jamaican national Duhane Hall.

The passport it's attached to belongs to somebody else entirely.

The cat-and-mouse game this tenancy cheat played with authorities lasted

more than a decade and cost the taxpayer nearly £200,000.

Counter-fraud manager Oliver Knight was in charge of the investigation.

So, Oliver, let's go back to the very beginning.

When did Duhane Hall first apply for a council flat?

He initially applied for a council property in 2005,

approached the council and basically needed accommodation.

When authorities checked the application everything seemed in order.

He provided his circumstances, explaining that he needed accommodation,

he'd come from Jamaica and he was living on his own.

-Perfectly legitimate as far as we were concerned at that time.

-Yeah.

-So, no alarm bells, it just seemed perfectly genuine.

-No.

Provided sufficient identification, it all seemed above board.

As a non-UK citizen Mr Hall was required to provide proof that not only

was he eligible for social housing,

but that he was also a permanent resident in the UK.

This required Home Office approval,

with an official stamp as well as a fully stamped and approved passport.

Duhane Hall was able to provide everything required by Sandwell Council.

As well as the application

he provided documentation from the Home Office

explaining he had indefinite leave to remain in the United Kingdom

and a Jamaican passport which was also stamped with indefinite leave

to remain in the United Kingdom.

And looking through this documentation, again that seemed completely above board?

Above board and no alarm bells suggested anything untoward.

The council concluded that having left Jamaica and secured indefinite leave to remain

the UK, Duhane Hall was in genuine need of support.

In 2005 they approved his application to join the housing waiting list.

In Sandwell we have got almost 29,000 council properties, but we

still have 7,000 people, approximately, on the waiting list,

so it's all about trying to get the properties to the right people.

Over four years later Duhane Hall struck gold and was handed

the keys to his very own one-bedroom

flat just six miles west of Birmingham in Oldbury.

A one-bedroom flat, it's sought-after, isn't it?

It is, yeah, and obviously the location that it's in,

it's not too far away from the bigger city, so it was a good location for him.

Satisfied that Duhane Hall's needs had been met, the council moved on

to focus their efforts on the next applicant needing support.

As far as Duhane Hall was concerned, the case was closed.

But a full decade later, in September 2015, everything changed.

Every two years we take part in the national data match that matches

records from all over the country,

including tenancy records, benefit records.

And it was this routine search that threw up something unusual.

According to the national data match,

Duhane Hall should never have been placed on the social housing waiting

list in the first place.

In fact, he should never even have been in the country.

According to the Home Office he had made repeated applications to remain

in the UK, all of which had been rejected.

It appeared that Duhane Hall had been an illegal UK resident since 2003.

So, how long was he actually living at that council property for?

He'd probably been living there almost ten years by this point.

So, ten years he was living under the radar,

-basically invisible to the authorities?

-He was, yeah.

How had Duhane Hall managed to not only remain in the UK,

but fool Sandwell Council into granting him a one-bedroom property in one of

the most sought-after areas in the borough?

Later...

How does someone know how to do this? In my mind I'm just thinking,

"It's crazy."

..the hunt for Duhane Hall suggests links with organised crime.

But it wasn't a case of him just doing it on his own,

he must have had some kind of help.

Earlier, we learned how tenancy fraud officers from the Royal Borough of Greenwich

launched an investigation into 56-year-old Lisa White.

She claimed to be disabled and living in a one-bedroom property with an elderly mother.

So, in total she was receiving about £600, £700 per week.

In various benefits.

But investigators suspected that Mrs White was actually running a thriving

business at the Bandstand Kiosk in Broadstairs, Kent.

To confirm their suspicions,

a specialist fraud team began undercover surveillance.

The challenge for counter-fraud investigator Clive Parrish was to capture her on camera.

So, what had you been told about Mrs White?

Well, all the information and intelligence we had was that this was a woman who

was quite severely disabled.

She didn't go out unless she had a wheelchair and an oxygen tank.

She could only walk indoors with the aid of a stick.

That she was very breathless with her asthma

and some days could barely talk because of it.

So, you rocked up to this point, this was your, kind of, first surveillance point.

You've got the kiosk there. What were you expecting to see?

As soon as we arrived, and from the vantage point at the top we could

see that there was movement already.

It all happened, started happening very quickly.

Clive and his surveillance team began covert filming of the Bandstand Kiosk.

We got close enough to hear

the man that was there, who was her husband, call her Lisa and her call him

by his name, and so we very quickly worked out what we had.

-And that lady was Mrs White?

-That lady turned out to be Mrs White.

The footage Clive's team captured was astonishing and proved once and

for all what investigators suspected.

So, right from the off you're here filming,

you can see that she is an able-bodied woman.

Yes, yes.

Lisa White, supposedly wheelchair-bound and severely disabled,

was in good health and able to run a thriving seaside cafe.

Obviously you reported back to the office,

they were waiting really with bated breath, weren't they, to see what you had managed to find?

-What was their reaction to it?

-When we played back the footage, um...

people where amazed.

We were in the office here waiting, I certainly was,

eagerly waiting on the phone to see what they were going to find.

I wouldn't say there was bets on whether or not she was going to be

disabled or not, but it was certainly the feeling that it's going to be an interesting day.

The first day we're down there, if we see her, as to whether she is able to walk or not.

And it was amazing.

When they finally called me that day and gave me an update, well,

I could have fell off the chair, really, because you just don't expect.

Even though we had a

really huge inkling that this would be happening,

you just don't expect someone to be this brazen.

People just were open-mouthed in disbelief.

In order to build a case against Mrs White the investigators had to

demonstrate that her seemingly good health wasn't just a one-off.

They continued filming and in the days and weeks that followed,

Clive and the team captured footage of Mrs White walking to and from work,

serving customers,

and even visiting a cash-and-carry

to load up with supplies for the kiosk.

And all the time claiming thousands in disability benefits

whilst beginning the process of applying for a council flat.

It was like we had hit a gold mine

in terms of what we had hoped to find.

It was exactly what we had hoped.

I was outraged, the whole team were outraged,

this lady has been claiming this money for years and years.

She is not only getting our money as well,

she is also getting other money from the state,

no doubt she was getting all of her prescriptions free.

Everything else that you get as a disabled person, she was taking those away

from the genuine people that would get these benefits that are now being cut.

It was outrageous, really, it really was.

Later...

It was just blatant. It's an affront to disabled people.

..Lisa White attempts to get her hands on a precious social housing property.

But the investigators are one step ahead of her.

She came in here as a full-blown actress, she deserved an Oscar

for that one, I think, really, on that day.

Earlier, investigators at Sandwell Council found out

Jamaican Duhane Hall had fraudulently obtained a social housing property

whilst living illegally in the UK.

He provided documentation from the Home Office explaining he had

indefinite leave to remain in the United Kingdom. And a passport,

a Jamaican passport, which was also stamped with indefinite leave

to remain in the United Kingdom.

Sandwell Council leader Steve Eling knows the effect

tenancy fraud can have in an already economically deprived borough.

There is a significant demand,

particularly for social housing in Sandwell.

And what that means is every time we've got people going in tenancies

fraudulently, they are denying those people who are on the waiting list

to get a decent-quality permanent home and that can't be right.

The Home Office had informed Sandwell Council that Duhane Hall

had been living illegally

in the UK for at least ten years.

Somehow, Duhane Hall had managed to fake documentation from a government ministry.

And we're not sure even now what that letter is and

whether it's a genuine letter that was amended or whether it's just a completely fake letter.

We have made enquiries with the Home Office and

they weren't really sure one way or the other.

After convincing authorities that he was legally entitled to remain in the UK,

Duhane Hall applied for social housing.

He was allocated a one-bedroom property in Oldbury but didn't stop there.

He set his sights on illegally claiming even more benefits.

But to do that, he needed a UK passport.

The passport itself, it was a genuine passport.

It was reported lost about four or five years

prior to Duhane Hall using it.

How did he manage to doctor it, though?

The truth is we don't actually know.

How it ever fell into Duhane Hall's hands we're not sure.

So, this passport number here is genuine and then he has put his information...

-Yes, or someone has for him.

-..on top of it.

-Yeah.

-Cos looking at it,

this requires real skill, it requires knowledge, doesn't it?

-It does.

-To know, even if you're not doing it yourself, knowing where to go in order to get it done.

And that's why it was such a determined effort,

it wasn't a case of him just doing it on his own,

he must have had some kind of help.

Obviously there's the possibility that he could've approached an organised crime group.

If people are willing to pay that money then they will be able to acquire a

false identity or false identity documents.

Duhane Hall was guilty of a systematic campaign to deceive Sandwell Council

and the benefit system in a tenancy fraud on a massive scale.

How does someone know how to do this?

-In my mind I'm just thinking, you know, "It's crazy."

-Yeah.

And I think it goes to show the level of investment he must have undertaken in

order to go and get this property in the first place.

It wasn't just something he stumbled across,

he was obviously willing to put money and time and investment into it

in order to go and get that property.

Armed with a catalogue of faked official paperwork,

Duhane Hall then successfully applied for housing benefit,

council tax benefit and Jobseeker's Allowance.

Over a ten-year period,

Duhane Hall received an incredible £180,000 from the public purse.

And all the while living in a council property also obtained by deception.

It's absolute deliberate fraud,

this isn't the sort of stuff that comes about because there was a mistake,

somebody put the wrong date on the form or something,

this is, you know, absolute deliberate fraud.

And he got away with it for quite some time.

Oliver had gathered enough evidence to confront this fraudster.

Obviously, first and foremost what we initially try to do is try and speak to the gentleman.

Obviously, we haven't got powers of arrest or anything like that, so a lot of the time

it is by voluntary interview.

He decided that he didn't want to come in and speak to us...

I am not surprised. SHE LAUGHS

In fact, when Duhane Hall learned that the authorities were wise to his deception, he absconded.

What followed was a six-month investigation to track down the fraudster.

Obviously, the investigators, they can sort of take this personally, because obviously it's their job

to try and bring these people to justice, so obviously it's all about trying to track these people down.

-Where did you find him?

-In this case the gentleman had actually taken out a doorstep loan

at one point, so it was quite easy to establish where he was at that point in time.

Finally the police caught up with Duhane Hall.

In court he pleaded guilty to five counts of fraud by false representation,

and was sentenced to three years in prison.

Sandwell Council has a strong fraud team and there is a message for people

out there - if you want to commit tenancy fraud don't bother coming here,

because sooner or later you will be caught.

After more than a decade of deception,

Sandwell fraud investigators were finally able to recover a much-needed property.

What does this mean for you going forward with that property now?

We've got the keys back.

We've now managed to re-let that one out to a gentleman who was in

desperate need of it, he was on the waiting list and now he's got that property.

I am guessing now you feel a lot better that you've got the

property back and it can be used suitably?

Yeah, that helps to bring our waiting lists down,

which is what it's all about.

When Duhane Hall is released from prison he will be deported

back to Jamaica.

Earlier, we saw how counter-fraud investigators managed to capture

astonishing footage of 56-year-old Lisa White after she'd claimed to be

severely disabled and wheelchair-bound.

I could have fell off the chair, really,

because you just don't expect someone to be this brazen.

The evidence against Mrs White was

starting to stack up, but what happened

next took everyone by surprise.

We was in the middle of the investigation and we didn't do surveillance

every day, because obviously it's a long period of time,

so on this one particular day,

we got an notification that Miss White had been in the building and had

submitted a housing form to seek housing for herself.

The team immediately checked the CCTV footage of Mrs White's visit to the council offices.

What they witnessed was a consummate performance.

We then had footage of her coming in, supported by her husband,

barely able to walk.

She looks as though she's barely able to breathe as well, a lot of head movements.

She looked dreadful,

but yet two days later when our team were back out following her around,

she was almost as fit as a fiddle.

It was a complete put-on.

She had come in here to try and get housing which would have been

specially adapted housing for her needs with her oxygen tank and all the

other things that she needs to keep her alive, allegedly.

She would have cost us a fortune.

She came in here as a full-blown actress.

She deserved her Oscar for that one, I think, really, on that day.

On top of claiming thousands in disability benefits, Lisa White was

now fraudulently applying for a council flat to call her own.

And all courtesy of the Royal Borough of Greenwich.

I think the only thing that's true on this application is her name.

The whole thing in this form is completely made up.

Yeah, complete load of tosh.

Lisa White made all these claims whilst

owning a luxury apartment in Broadstairs.

I mean, this is an ideal setting.

The building is stunning, it's right on the coast.

What's it like inside?

-Describe it to me.

-Well, quite amazing. Very luxurious.

I mean, the entrance hall,

it still looks like an old Victorian hotel reception.

It's really quite beautiful.

The evidence against Lisa White was irrefutable.

On 28 September 2015,

she was arrested at her Grand Mansions apartment on 13 fraud-related charges.

In the apartment, police found no walking stick or oxygen tank.

Instead, they discovered more than £5,000

of unused prescription medicine.

And when they examined the hard drive on her computer, they also found this.

MUSIC: All I Want For Christmas by Mariah Carey

# I don't want a lot for Christmas

# There is just one thing I need

# Don't care about the presents underneath the Christmas tree... #

And just when investigators had thought they'd seen it all.

It was just blatant that she was running a business down here,

living a very nice lifestyle and she was moving about very freely and

wasn't a disabled person.

She went, "All I want for Christmas," but she had pretty much got everything.

She'd got her nice little flat in Broadstairs,

another council flat she thought she was going to get up here,

her two businesses and a nice £37,000 mobility vehicle,

so I don't think she needed much more for Christmas that year.

In the end, it was Lisa White's own greed

that was to be her undoing.

So, really, her coming in here,

technically during the middle of our surveillance,

was a blessing in disguise, because it just showed the true level of how she

was pretending to be. It actually couldn't have gone any better.

By now investigators had been able to fully examine the extent of Mrs White's fraud.

What they uncovered amounted to a systematic abuse of the

benefits system stretching back more than six years.

Mrs White stole, that we could prove, just over £150,000.

Over a course of a few years she had been on cruises,

we found evidence she had been on cruises around the world.

In fact, even after she was arrested by the police and then bailed for

this, she then went on a £9,000 cruise,

so she clearly didn't have any remorse at all for the taxpayer that she'd stolen

from or the people that she may have deprived of the use of a nice

council property, if she had got the thing.

So, Ron, you're local to the area.

What did you think when you heard about the case of Mrs White?

Well, I thought it was absolutely disgusting. I really did.

Did she think we owed her something or...?

I don't know how their minds work

to be able to do this kind of thing.

No, I find it really difficult to understand.

There's somebody there taking money from people who really need it.

I mean, that's the worst sort as well, when you read the total amount,

and also being able to go to a van and carry boxes and been seen dancing.

I would give my right arm to be able to do any of those things.

No, it makes me feel very, very cross about her.

On March 2nd 2017,

after pleading guilty to one of the most shocking cases of benefit and

attempted tenancy fraud ever witnessed by Greenwich Council,

Mr and Mrs White faced the judge.

For his part in the deception Mrs White's husband Andrew received

a nine-month sentence suspended for two years.

Lisa White received an 18-month prison term.

Summing up her fraudulent behaviour, the judge stated...

You had invested a lot of time in this case to gather up the evidence that you needed.

On a personal level, aside from being an investigator,

how did it make you feel?

Well, it made me think that it's greed and completely unnecessary.

There were benefits in payment that this lady wasn't entitled to.

She was claiming to be disabled.

It's an affront to disabled people.

To come away knowing that she's now got to reflect on her crime over the

next few months or 18 months in prison is actually quite a nice feeling.

Hopefully, it might actually make her think twice about coming out and

doing the same again.

Lisa and Andrew White have been ordered to pay over £78,000

in compensation to the Royal Borough of Greenwich by

15th December 2017

Our next case involves this man, Mark Grant -

a council tenant who made tens of thousands of pounds

in unlawful profits in a brazen subletting scam.

Because this is such an affluent and attractive area,

he was able to charge top whack.

He was able to charge a premium for this.

He was charging beyond £1,500 a month,

when he was only paying just over £500 a month.

He exploited this completely to his advantage.

The London borough of Brent.

In this expensive part of north-west London, the demand

for social housing far outstrips supply, and in the last 12 months,

investigators have uncovered more than 70 cases of tenancy fraud.

The story started here in this handsome, tree-lined street.

Genesis Housing Association own and run many social housing properties

in this area, including this two-bedroom flat.

Amanda Ryan works for the housing association.

This is a really nice street.

Lots of nice houses down the street,

it's well located to get into central London,

there's some nice parks in the area.

It's a key area for Genesis as well, in terms of the housing

that we operate.

In 1993, Mark Grant applied for social housing.

He said he was working as a decorator

and struggling with the high costs of living in London.

Brent council's head of fraud, Dave Verma, says Grant was lucky

to get a place like this.

The properties here don't look like social housing.

They don't look like your standard block or estate.

No-one would know that these are social housing properties

and we've got multiple people viewing the properties around here,

when they do rarely come up.

Mark Grant seemed to be the model tenant.

He met all the criteria to be awarded this social housing.

He was here from 1993 to around 2015 without anyone being aware

of any wrongdoing whatsoever.

The first sign that something was wrong came when a woman contacted

Genesis Housing, complaining that her boiler wasn't working.

The address she gave was Mark Grant's flat.

It quickly became clear that Grant was unlawfully subletting his flat

and that she was the unwitting subtenant.

His illegal subtenant was suffering from cold and no hot water.

The boiler had broken down and she was very much trying to get in touch

with him. Now, for whatever reason,

he wasn't forthcoming in fixing the boiler, so out of sheer desperation,

she opened it up and saw a number for Genesis.

Genesis handed the case over to Dave Verma and his dedicated fraud

investigation team at Brent council.

To Dave, it was immediately clear what had happened.

In her mind, she was phoning up Genesis,

who had something to do with the boiler.

She didn't realise it was a housing association,

so she inadvertently tipped off that there was something up.

Dave ran some credit checks and found two other names

linked to the address.

He decided to make an unannounced visit and was greeted not by

Mark Grant but by a young woman and her partner who turned out to

be the unsuspecting subtenants.

They said they'd seen the flat advertised on Gumtree and had

been living there for more than a year.

They're completely genuine.

They'd seen the advert and got in touch with the landlord

and he came along, purporting to be with a letting agent.

So the whole thing looks completely pukka and they presented her with

documents that looked completely real.

She would've had no idea that this was actually social housing.

Nor had they realised that the man purporting to be the landlord

was in fact Mark Grant, the official tenant.

It was at that visit that their world started to fall apart somewhat

and they realised that the documents,

which looked very legitimate,

weren't worth the paper they'd been written on.

The tenancy agreement Grant had given them showed

they were paying more than £1,500 a month.

Because this is such an affluent and attractive area,

he was able to charge top whack.

He was able to charge a premium for this.

He was charging beyond £1,500 a month, when he was only paying

just over £500 a month.

He exploited this completely to his advantage.

Mark Grant was pocketing thousands in unlawful profits.

Meanwhile, the unsuspecting subtenants were now facing

the prospect of losing the flat they'd made their home.

They were very stressed, very anxious, because they realised

that what they thought was a secure tenancy, obtained lawfully

with proper deposits and proper rent, wasn't at all.

Some people think that social housing fraud is a victimless crime.

That clearly isn't the case.

We were unable to let this property to genuine people

on our waiting list.

So, again, they're victims, they're in temporary accommodation,

they've got uncertainty.

So, generally speaking, it clearly is a victim crime.

There's definite victims, in terms of people who are duped,

people who can't live here and also dramatic impact on the public purse.

Later, fraudster landlord Mark Grant turns on his innocent subtenants.

He had definitely got wind that something was up.

There was communication between her and Mark Grant.

The tone had very much changed from someone purporting to be a landlord

to someone who very much wanted her and her family out.

The victims of the housing crisis is no longer confined to densely

populated metropolitan areas of the UK.

Here in the cathedral city of Peterborough,

there are almost 3,000 people on the waiting list,

nearly 400 of those are families in desperate need.

Adrian Chapman is the council's director of adult services and communities.

About a year ago, we were probably advertising about 40 properties

a week that people could apply for.

These days, if we get up to double figures a week, we're doing really well,

so we've got a lot of demand and not enough supply.

In 2015-16, the council spent more

than £1 million putting families in temporary accommodation,

including B&Bs and even the local Travelodge.

We will always accommodate people, albeit temporarily,

albeit sometimes in bed-and-breakfast accommodation

or, as we're currently having to use, a Travelodge.

There is no need for anybody to not have a roof over their heads.

We've got some nice chicken soup that grand-mummy made.

Then we've got some milk, haven't we?

We are struggling in here because it is difficult just being one room

with the three of us.

This young family, Joshua, Caroline and 16-month-old Phoebe,

are living in this single room in a hostel on the outskirts

of Peterborough.

This is all we have, basically. This is our room where we sleep.

This is our room where we do everything with Phoebe.

There's shared bathrooms, shared kitchen, so it's not ideal, really.

But, I mean, this is what we've got at the minute.

We can't really call it our home, but until we find somewhere

or the council puts us somewhere, this is all we've got, really.

Joshua and Caroline were both in work when their landlord decided

to sell up, ironically so the house could be converted

into temporary accommodation units.

Suddenly, they were homeless.

People think homeless, they just think of someone on the street selling the Big Issue and people

don't really think that people in B&Bs and hostels are considered

as homeless, but this isn't a home, as you can see.

It's just one room for the three of us.

It's a real struggle at times.

The shock of being made homeless whilst bringing up a young child

placed a huge stress on this young couple.

They are struggling to come to terms with their new circumstances.

Over here, we've got some cupboard space.

It's got some stuff in it.

And then we've got some of our food down here.

I think the worst of it is just sort of...

..how cramped it is and how little there is, really.

Like, the fact we're having to put most of our stuff under the bed.

The upheaval has had a huge impact on this young family.

Joshua and Caroline have lost their jobs and they now need to get back

into employment as soon as possible.

But job-hunting without a permanent address is difficult.

I think getting the house is the first step towards

getting our lives back on track, really, cos that's another thing,

like, with the whole temporary accommodation,

it does kind of put your life on hold a little bit.

The longer you are in here,

the harder it makes it to get back on track.

Since filming, Joshua and Caroline have been allocated

a two-bed social housing property.

Caroline has also managed to get a job as a recruitment consultant.

There's definitely been a fair share of our dark moments, I'd say, but I

do feel quite confident that we can only move forward from here, really.

If you're a tenant and you no longer need your social housing property,

you're supposed to notify the council and hand the keys back.

Failure to do so is not only a breach of tenancy,

it's also depriving other individuals and families on the waiting list

who need somewhere to live.

As part of a crackdown on tenancy fraud,

Havering Council in east London recently offered a £500 reward

to anyone providing a tip-off leading to a property being recovered.

In the last 18 months, 35 properties have been reclaimed.

Some have been fraud cases, but others have involved breaches of tenancy.

Like this two-bedroom council house that was abandoned and

may have been lying empty for years.

Lorraine Van Dam is a housing officer at Havering Council.

The house is on her patch.

And according to neighbours,

the tenant hasn't been seen living at the house for years.

We got a tip-off from an anonymous letter,

stating one, that the garden was overgrown and two,

that this particular person was living with a sibling

in another local address.

It states that the gentleman who lives in the address we're going

to go to has been living with his sibling at one of our other properties,

for at least three years.

He only visits this property a couple of times a week

to pick up mail.

The anonymous person said, "I don't think it is right that he has

"got away with this for three years.

"It would be the right thing to do to investigate this matter."

This letter is obviously somebody

who really cares about this community

and really sees the unjust of this gentleman

and the way he's abusing his tenancy.

You can see the dirt and everything and that's been like that for ages.

And the boarding there.

It's annoying because, at the end of the day, if someone was living there,

there's no reason this property should be in this state.

Lorraine tried to contact the tenant by calling round,

but she couldn't get a response,

which only reinforced her belief that he was no longer residing at the house.

This, together with the neglect of the property,

was a serious breach of his tenancy agreement.

So she referred the case to Havering Council's fraud team.

Former police officer Dave Gill took on the case.

Whilst my main duty is to investigate fraud,

it's always done with that social aspect in mind

that this is a property that could and should be being used

for a family in genuine, real need.

Dave delved into the two-bedroom property's tenancy history

and found the man had moved there in the '70s with his mother.

In 2010, his elderly mother had assigned the tenancy to him.

A legal process known as succession.

As part of his investigation,

Dave examined the repair history and utility bills of the house.

He soon discovered that there had been little activity at the property since 2013.

So we asked this tenant to come in and we put all the evidence that we'd gathered to him.

It was to give that tenant their opportunity to give us

an account of what had happened, really,

to explain their circumstances and why we'd ended up in this situation.

The tenant came in for questioning.

When he was talking, it was obvious that he wasn't living there.

He explained that him and his sibling wanted to live

somewhere else, outside the borough.

So I just served him with a Notice to Quit, there and then.

But he refused to give the property back and today,

Havering Council plan to evict him.

There's no more delays or any other part of the process that we need to

go through or complete. We will be getting the property back today.

But at the last minute, the eviction is called off.

The tenant relents and hands in the keys.

It was initially an eviction but then the tenant has now given the keys

back to us, so the property is back in our possession.

Later, Lorraine finally gets inside the house and is shocked by what she finds.

Wow. One very unloved house, I think.

Back in the London Borough of Brent,

a young couple thought they'd been renting their two-bedroomed flat

lawfully for more than 18 months,

but they'd been conned.

They were very stressed, very anxious, because they realised

that what they thought was a secure tenancy, obtained lawfully

with proper deposits and proper rent, wasn't at all.

The man posing as their landlord was this man, Mark Grant,

and the flat they were living in was a social housing property.

Grant was supposed to be living there himself,

but he was unlawfully subletting it.

Brent Council's head of fraud, Dave Verma

broke the news to the unsuspecting sub-tenants that

the man they thought was their landlord was in fact a fraudster.

It wasn't long before Mark Grant knew the authorities were onto him.

Mark Grant definitely got wind that something was up.

One of the key pieces of evidence that came in was from the sub-tenant

and that's these text messages here.

These show that there was communication between her

and Mark Grant, and that the tone had very much changed

from someone purporting to be a landlord to someone who very much

wanted her and her family out.

For example, "You need to just go and find another place, that's all.

"In life you must learn to walk away when things are not worth

"fighting for." We could tell that he was nervous by this point.

So I think all this was very much a shock for the sub-tenant,

who thought that she was involved with a very proper landlord.

This clearly is not professional.

Grant then turned up at the property and evicted the sub-tenants

there and then.

I understand that her possessions had to be left with a neighbour,

and she was without anywhere to stay, and clearly it was

-a very difficult time for her.

-But the matter was far from over.

Brent Council were building a strong criminal case against Grant.

The final piece of evidence,

which is the clincher for the case and very damning, is the statement,

the bank statement we obtained for Mark Grant.

This was obtained using our powers under the Prevention of Social

Housing Fraud Act. Now this bank statement contains transactions

showing that illegal rent of £1,517 is coming in on a regular basis.

For example, on the 26th of September 2015, £1,517.

This clearly shows the rent coming in from the illegal sub-tenant

and making significant profit, as well.

It was clear to us as investigators that the property had indeed been

sublet, and that the sub-tenant and her family had very much been duped.

Mark Grant was invited to attend an interview under caution.

Now, at that interview, he decided to give a no comment.

His demeanour was quite calm.

He clearly wanted to see what we had without commenting on it,

which is a strategy often used by people who are involved

in this kind of behaviour. He didn't seem particularly

flustered by the evidence at that time, but I would suggest

that he was probably surprised at the amount of evidence that we had,

and also the bank statements showing the rent coming in.

On the 13th of October, 2016, Mark Grant appeared before

Brent magistrates charged with offences under the

Prevention of Social Housing Fraud Act.

Mark Grant was found guilty of illegally subletting the entire

two-bedroomed property between July '14 and October '16.

He was sentenced to 200 hours of unpaid community service,

and was ordered to pay back £14,760 in unlawful profits...

..as well as just over £1,000

in legal costs.

Now, later on, Brent Council's legal team took Mark Grant to civil court

and this was to effect the possession order

to recover the property. This also resulted in additional costs of £481

being awarded to us and rent arrears of around £5,500

being awarded to us as well.

In total, Mark Grant had to pay almost £22,000,

and give the property back.

My personal view on this is that justice has been served and that

this person clearly thought they could get away with this kind of

behaviour. They thought they could use our property to generate profit,

and he's been shown that he can't behave like this.

I think that the amount of evidence obtained in this case has resulted

in a very, very good result for the public generally.

The unsuspecting sub-tenants are now renting a privately owned property,

and as for this Genesis Housing Association flat, it has

now been reallocated to a family with two children in genuine need.

It means a lot to us that we are able to allocate this flat

to a family who really deserve it. The people who successfully applied

currently live in very bad conditions, so for them

to actually be able to move to somewhere which is safe and

in a lovely condition, where they can bring up their family,

is a really good result.

Back in Havering the team are investigating an anonymous tip-off that one

of their two-bedroom social housing properties had been abandoned and

fallen into disrepair.

It was initially an eviction but then the tenant has now given the keys back to us.

So the property is back in our possession.

Now, Lorraine is finally hoping to gain access to the property.

The tenant moved out years ago but hadn't told anyone.

A serious breach of his tenancy.

We're expecting to see what condition the property's in.

Because we have to do a quick turnaround so it can be re-let.

It will need a new kitchen,

new bathroom, before we can let it out to a tenant.

The average waiting time for social housing property in Havering

is well over two years,

so housing officer Lorraine is keen to get the property back into use as

quickly as possible.

Looking at the front garden, there's been no work done there for quite some time.

When someone moves into a social housing property,

they become responsible for maintaining all parts of the home,

including both front and back gardens.

Wow.

The floors and carpets are coated in layers of dust, grease and grime.

Certainly doesn't look like it's been decorated or lived in for years.

Tenants must keep their social housing in a decent state.

Failure to do so is a further breach of tenancy.

The back garden is so overgrown and it certainly hasn't been cut back for years.

I really don't want to open the door.

I fear what might run in the house.

It smells damp, it smells stale.

Very, very untidy.

Well, dirty.

Have a look at the kitchen.

It's certainly of a very, very old standard.

It certainly hasn't had a new kitchen since probably when the property was built.

We're going to be charged quite a bit to get this cleared.

Lifting all the carpets.

The whole house has got to be decorated.

It's vital that the council get this property into a fit state as quickly

as possible so a new family can move in.

Right, I'm entering one of the two bedrooms, which...

..as you can see, it hasn't been lived in for quite some time.

The decoration is ancient.

Bus pass there dated 4th December 1989.

It's just so unused and so...

What a waste.

Under the terms of his tenancy,

this tenant should have notified the council if he was going to be away

from his property for over 28 days.

Failure to do so is unauthorised abandonment.

The fact that he wasn't living in it is irrelevant.

The decoration, he should have still maintained decoration while he was still living in the

property, as he claims he's been out of the property for a couple of years.

I'm sorry, this is evidence that he's been out of the property for many more years.

One very unloved house, I think.

Due to the level of neglect, it took several weeks

and cost over £13,000 to get this property

back to a liveable state.

It's now home to a family who genuinely need it.

Thanks to the tireless work of fraud investigators,

precious family homes are being reclaimed from tenancy cheats and re-let

to people for whom a home will make the world of difference.

This is Jenny Jones from Wolverhampton and her daughter, Millie.

Again, again!

Faster, faster!

Jenny was on the social housing waiting list for six months,

sleeping on an air bed in her parents' dining room.

So you were on the housing waiting list for six months.

Just describe to me what it was like for you and your family in those

darkest moment.

I felt ashamed that things had got to that point

and I hadn't been able to...

Things were out of my control.

I felt like I had nothing of my own.

That I was relying on my parents and it had come to the fact that I was

sleeping on an air bed.

How did this property come about in the end?

Well, I bid on the property, I hadn't come top of the list for it.

And then about three weeks after the bidding for the property had ended,

I had a call from the lettings team to say that, for whatever reason,

the person who was before me didn't want the property.

And I was next for it.

How did you feel?

Oh, I cried... I was so happy, I cried.

I think I made the guy on the phone feel slightly awkward.

I was just so happy, just run to my mum and dad, saying, "I've got one, I've got one."

What does it mean to you now, Jenny,

to have a place that you and Millie can call your home?

It means everything, it means everything to me.

It's ours, it's our little place,

it's where we can come back to if we've had a hard day at work,

a hard day at school, somewhere we can be happy,

where we can make memories and I can watch her grow up.

And to have my own responsibilities, I enjoy it,

I enjoy taking responsibility for paying the bills and to know that

I've paid those bills, that's mine now, I own it, this is mine.

It just does wonders for your self-esteem, I think,

to know that you've got that place

that's nobody else's, just yours.

Well, it's lovely to see someone who obviously did need it, like yourself,

in a lovely property.

-It would be great to have a little look around.

-OK, yes.

This is the lounge.

It's a great space, isn't it?

Feels like a proper home.

Yes, I do try to make it nice and homely.

-Would you like to see upstairs?

-Let's do it.

And here is Millie's room.

Oh, now this is lovely.

It's just lovely and colourful.

-Yes, it's her space.

-That's it, it's her space.

She normally has all her toys everywhere and it's just somewhere

where she can come after school or when she gets up in the morning and

just create her own little world and her own little stories in here.

And it's a good-sized space for her as she gets older.

I did think that, as well.

When she does get older and she wants less space for toys and more space for wardrobes, TVs.

That's it, us girls like a good wardrobe.

It is a really good size.

For Jenny, social housing meant more than just a roof over her head.

It also provided a new direction professionally.

To gain a council properly has changed my life immensely.

Not only has it got me and Millie out of a terrible situation,

and it's meant we've had a place of our own,

but it's also opened up opportunities of work to me.

So I was able to gain employment with the council, so I now work for them.

And I help other tenants get back into work, like they did with me.

To give me a home, my daughter a home, a roof over our heads,

and then to give me a job where I can support myself and my daughter,

I will be eternally grateful.

It's my fresh start, my new chapter.

It's everything that a mother would want for her child.

It symbolises so much more than just somewhere to live.

Social housing can make a real, tangible difference to people's lives.

And that's why the work of housing investigators is so vitally important,

as they track down the tenancy cheats,

reclaim properties and give them to people who really need them.