Yesterday I blogged about the start of the 2024 International Fraud Awareness Week today. For the next 7 days, and assuming I remember, I will seek to highlight the importance of fraud work in the social housing arena.
On a practical level, we had the report of a successful Prevention of Social Housing Fraud Act 2013 section 2 prosecution on 22 August 2024, where the defendant, who at the relevant time had been a tenant of Notting Hill Genesis, sub-let their social housing after buying their own house in 2018. For the period between March 2019 and November 2023 they received over £60,000 in rents from sub-tenants. They were fined £477 and ordered to pay £40,000 in compensation (I assume an unlawful profit order) plus £2,314.70 in costs. The London Borough of Barnet’s Corporate Anti-Fraud Team carried out the investigation.
On a more general level, on 12 September 2024 Milton Keynes Council announced that since May 2023 and following an investigation it discovered that 30 of its properties were being unlawfully sublet. These were recovered by the Council and re-allocated to those in housing need.
Finally, and by way of a reminder, my colleague Sarah Salmon and I presented a webinar for the Cornerstone Barristers’ Housing Team in December 2023 on the topic of “Housing fraud in the courts – getting the best evidence”. The link is here.
#fraudweek
