Tenancy Fraud - unlawful subletting of a social home
Neil Morgan, Head of Social Housing, asks -
what are the implications of making this a criminal
offence?
07 I 04 I 10
In a report last month by
the independent think tank New Local Government Network, it was
recommended that the unlawful subletting of social homes ought to
be made a criminal offence on the same footing as benefit
fraud. Now, the Housing Minister John Healey, has released a
press statement (30th March 2010) confirming that the
Government intends to follow up on these recommendations.
Unlawful subletting of a
social home occurs when a tenant sublets their property to a third
party against the terms of the tenancy agreement with their social
landlord. The practice is common and often unrecognised or
ignored by landlords. The research estimates that there are
currently 50,000 unlawfully sublet social housing properties within
the UK.
Among suggested reforms
are legislative changes to help social landlords with recovery of
such properties, including criminal sanctions. Also proposed
are financial incentives to encourage social landlords to take
action against offenders, however, how such financial incentives
will be paid for is unclear.
Making the practice a
criminal offence would open up a number of new ways of tackling the
problem that are not currently available. However, as the
standard of proof in criminal cases is much higher, this would need
to be the case. Information gathering is less restricted in
the field of benefit fraud as data protection is dealt with
differently for civil and criminal offences.
Currently, where an
unlawful subletting is discovered, the tenant risks losing their
property, but there is a small chance they may be able to keep it
and the financial rewards of the subletting probably balance
favourably against the risks.
Increasing public
awareness of the damage done by this form of tenant fraud, together
with changes to the law to introduce a risk of criminal conviction,
may well go some way towards helping to reduce unlawful subletting,
but without the willingness of social landlords to pursue
perpetrators it is difficult to see that legal changes on their own
would suffice.
Unless there is an
associated fraud, such as housing benefit claims, the question is
whether making it a criminal offence is really necessary or
appropriate.
For more
information on how to deal with unlawful subletting or any other
housing related matter, please contact Neil Morgan, Head of Social
Housing, on neil.morgan@hughjames.com
A version of this article first appeared
in Welsh Housing Quarterly Issue 77 March 2010