The Aud Pod · Episode

Use International Fraud Awareness Week 2025 to cut fraud risk in Mexico with clear steps, real cases, and support from GrayCat PI. Learn more.

The increasing popularity of short-term lets has added a new dimension to sub-letting problems faced by social housing landlords. I have written previously on this subject 3 times: August 2019, August 2022 and December 2023. Over 4 years ago I ran my first webinar on this issue and last month ran my latest event along with Stephanie Toghill:

For day 5 of the International Fraud Awareness Week I thought I would highlight 5 suggestions for improving the prospects of a successful fraud possession action. There will be many others of course but this is a start! Use court processes effectively - for example, the Part 18 Request for Further Information. Defences are frequently (and perhaps understandably) brief and leaving many important questions unanswered.

Almost the end of the week, and I am in court on a sub-letting possession matter. I have been very impressed by so many organisations’ approach to the International Fraud Awareness Week, and if I can be especially biased I have loved the Tenancy Fraud Forum’s top tips series. But fraud is an issue throughout the year and not just for a week, and I hope in my field of housing fraud it continues to be dealt with enthusiastically and persistently.

In April 2023 Lost homes, lost hope: social housing fraud in England – recovering social homes for those in need - a research report produced by the Tenancy Fraud Forum and Fraud Advisory Panel - was produced. It proceeded on the basis that the average cost of tenancy fraud in England was £42,000 per property and found: 148,000 social homes were subject to some sort of tenancy fraud.

As we go into day 3 of the International Fraud Awareness Week I go home to Northampton. On 24 July 2024 West Northamptonshire Council reported that they had successfully prosecuted a man who had unlawfully attempted to secure social housing by failing to disclose that he was the sole tenant of a property in Bletchingdon, Oxfordshire. He pleaded guilty to making false claims and providing false information to commit fraud under the Fraud Act 2006 and was required to complete 25 days of rehabilitation activities and pay £1,315 in fines and costs by Wellingborough Magistrates’ Court on 17 July 2024.  

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.