Social housing fraudsters (Tenants of housing association properties) advertising here

[housestealers]

A note of warning about renting from people who advertise here - last December an ad was placed for a 2 bed house in East Dulwich, to rent. The advertisers admitted the house was a housing association property but said they had permission from the housing association to rent it out.

It turned out they didn't, as I found when I needed to register with a doctor locally and called the housing association for a letter confirming my address.

Tenants of housing association properties are not allowed to sub let them, it's unlawful and is a prosecutable offence. It has to be prosecuted by the local authority though and it seems they don't bother. The housing association officer I spoke to said that "sub letting is rife". The couple advertising this particular house turn out to have already had a previous social housing flat, from Southwatk Council, which they had bought under right to buy and still owned. And a property on a tropical island, where they seem to spend most of the year.

Does anyone know how these people build up property empires by repeatedly being given subsidised housing that's supposed to go to those in need? One of them had worked for Southwark Council, is that a clue perhaps?

And of course the government is about to allow tenants buy housing association properties, with a ?100,000 windfall - so this couple will have had a right to buy windfall from a council flat, followed by a right to buy windfall from a housing association house.

Surely there should be an audit of all HA properties before any are sold to characters like this, they should be made to sign a declaration that they don't own private property already, and if they are caught lying, they should be prosecuted by the police. They are stealing from those of us who pay for social housing through tax and have to commute for many hours to our jobs in London.

[Mustard]

That's really odd, Peter Johns is a local councillor, and perhaps he could address this.

[Palladio]

I have experienced something similar to you. Out of interest what ethnicity are the fraudsters?

[housestealers]

Hi Not sure what ethnicity could have to do with it!

If I were you, I would look up the property on the Land Registry (which costs ?3) and there you can see who owns it. If you can tell from that, that the people trying to let it to you were crooks,i.e. if it's owned by the Council or an HA or other charity, it can't lawfully be sub let, send your records to the Council or the Housing Association and call the Southwark Council Fraud team. And perhaps keep an eye to see if anything happens.

Cost of crooks scamming themselves a social housing property?

- council pays out how much a month to house the huge number of people on the housing waiting list in hostels / temporary private sector flats?, plus all the costs of admin for Council / HA officers dealing with them etc, that would be say ?15,000 a year for a couple / family? I'm guessing here.

So in the case of the house advertised here last December, which I understand has been sub let for 10 years, that's

?150,000. If a burglar steals ?150,000, and they're caught, they go to jail, so why does nothing happen to these people?

And in this case, these characters already had a Southwark Council property which had been sold to them not that long ago at a knock down price, which they would make about ?400,000 profit from if they sold now. So they've already had a massive windfall from the public purse.

Given the housing situation in London, I have to ask myself, how does this go on? Is there any legal genius out there who would know if council / HA property sales could be stopped until they prove they are not handing them out to criminal fraudsters? Shouldn't there be some come back for people who have been told they have no chance of ever being allocated social housing, when no adequate checks are being carried out on the people who do get it?

[housestealers]

My earlier figure of ?15000 a year loss per property to social housing criminals turns out to be an underestimate, the official figure is apparently ?18k outside London, inside London must be much more.

It seems that the Housing Association which owns this very desirable little estate in East Dulwich, inherited it from an ex housing association called Presentation, and that a number of fraudulent tenancies have already been identified on this one small estate. That's people who had been given social tenancies, and were subletting the properties, and who already owned other properties. This rather begs the question, why haven't all the tenancies been investigated, since it looks like a large organised criminal fraud?

Cost to those of us who are told we can never be considered for social housing, but have to pay to subsidise the mass fraud, on top of paying our own market housing costs - many, many, many millions. Cost to genuine people in need stuck renting from terrifying crook private landlords, living with mouldy damp, overcrowding, daily insecurity, - blighted lives.

Why has no one gone to jail? Why don't they have to pay back the money they have stolen? Isn't there something called the "Proceeds of Crime Act" or similar?

[housestealers]

Whoops, was duplicate post.