40 houses recovered in right-to-buy scams in Sandwell
A total of 40 council houses valued at more than £3 million were recovered by Sandwell last year following fraud investigations into right-to-buy applications.
An annual report to the council’s audit and risk assurance committee meeting says its counter fraud team has investigated 218 cases where tenants get discounts of up to £82,800 when applying to buy their homes.
The recovered properties – valued at £3,720,000 – were taken back into public ownership as part of the authority’s counter-fraud programme.
In addition, some 54 applications to buy homes were cancelled and officers calculated in total tax payers were saved £3,894,960.
A council spokesman said while in certain cases inquiries overlapped a number of years, the report’s figures related to those investigations concluded during 2018/19.
Social housing demand
Warning right-to-buy fraud is a national issue which takes money from taxpayers but also denies homes to people on council’s housing list, the report says: “This area continues to be a large issue for councils to deal with, both nationally and locally, due to the demand for social housing.
“Pro-active work is undertaken to identify potential fraudulent applications to avoid them entering the allocation process while we continue to investigate reports from neighbourhood offices and members of the public.
“Identifying fraudulent applications not only reduces the demand for social housing and the strain on the council’s waiting list, but also reduces the time and cost of having to evict fraudulent tenants once they have been awarded a tenancy.”
The report also highlights wrongful and fraudulent claims for single person discount when individuals living on their own are awarded 25 per cent off their council tax bills.
After investigations, more than £55,000 in awards were removed and £70 penalties were issued for every year of a fraudulently claim – in total £7,560 was imposed on claimants.
The report highlights other areas of fraud such as tenancy subletting, housing benefit and claims for allowances for personal care for the elderly or ill which is not needed – including cases where carers pocketed the money or continued to claim after the person they had cared for died.
