Mercian Tenancy Fraud Forum newsletter

Issue 1 | December 2016

NEWSLETTER Chairman’s report

The first Mercian Tenancy Fraud Forum

A warm welcome to our first newsletter. Mercian Tenancy Fraud Forum (MTFF) was created by a dedicated group of housing practitioners who all have a keen interest in targeting tenancy fraud.

Tuesday 28th February 2017

It is with pride that I am chair of the group and commend the enthusiasm that members have shown.

Fraud is sometimes looked on as a victimless crime but we as a group know that this is not the case and we are passionate about identifying offenders and bringing them to account.

We are looking at the potential of fraud across the organisations at every level from the original application for housing, to applications to succeed and applications to buy whether its right to buy or voluntary.

Our ambition is clear to raise the profile of fraud within each organisation and to support members to reduce fraud.

is being held on

at Fortis Living, Midland Road, Worcester WR5 1DU For further details contact: padams@fortisliving.com

Tenancy Fraud Case – Herefordshire Housing Our Enforcement Team have successfully investigated and dealt with another Tenancy Fraud case within our housing stock.

Following reports from neighbours and the Customer Account Manager that the tenants had moved to South Wales leaving their son at the address the case was referred to the team.

On each visit officers were told that the parents were out for the day and would call the officer upon their return which they often did, but always from a mobile phone.

The team using their investigative skills, new powers and working with other agencies were very quickly able to trace the tenants to an address in Abertillery, South Wales where they held another tenancy and were claiming full Housing Benefit.

Several significant successes from Fortis’ Livings Tenancy Enforcement Team has included stopping a fraudulent right to buy of a 2 bedroom house and subletting of a 3 bedroom house. Both properties have now been reallocated to homeless families.

In addition the teams pro active response to abandoned properties has resulted in another 10 properties going to those in need.

When interviewed the tenants were adamant that they still lived at the address. However, when presented with the evidence gained by carrying out home visits and NAFN enquiries, to which they could not offer any defence they decided to terminate the tenancy immediately.

John Dallison the lead officer in the case said:

“This is another example of people trying to play the system. But by using the new powers and with the team dedicating more time to tenancy fraud we will catch them and take the appropriate action”.

Jon Elger Tenancy Services Manager says:

“We are committed to targeting those that commit fraud against us, going forward we have a strong dedicated team who have the necessary resources for even greater success”.

What can you find on Yammer today?

As you will be aware there are some very useful groups and posts on Yammer that have been created by practitioners for practitioners.

Go to the ‘Tenancy Fraud Training’ group to find out the training that others have used and found useful an ideal location for you to add your feedback and recommend some good training courses and trainers. You may even like to offer some training yourself.

If you have any success stories or media coverage then you may wish to place this in the ‘Housing Fraud News’ section. Go on share your successes! It gives others confidence and highlights what good work we are doing to tackle tenancy fraud across the country.

You may be discussing something that others would like to join in with or new Yammer members may wish to join you at your meetings. We already have several groups on Yammer letting others know their good practice. Lets keep this up and encourage others to be part of this.

If you can answer a question, share good practice or simply want to know more then please take advantage of the experience and knowledge of those ‘posting’ on Yammer.

Our story so far.

After attending a Gloucester Tenancy Fraud event in 2014 a group of us saw the need to have a similar group working in our areas.

In March 2015 we met for the first time created our name and set up a series of themed meetings covering RTB, Allocations, and Income.

Just over a year later we are a good strong group sharing information and best practice.

Our first Fraud case In 2011 we became aware that one of our Tenants was not living at his property but was allowing his Daughter and her family to live there. He lived with his Partner miles away.

The Daughter had Data disclosure permission signed by her Father so we had no reason not to discuss things with her. She started to put in all sorts of complaints and when we tried to work with her and her Father she would put in a formal complaint if she didn’t get her own way.

The Housing Officer started to investigate and found that the tenant was claiming Housing Benefit so spoke to the benefits department to investigate. An interview was arranged to speak to our tenant who advised that he lived at our property and spent most of his time in his bedroom watching the TV. After the interview the Benefits Officer and the Housing Officer said they would follow the tenant back to the property and inspect.

They found that the spare room that he was supposed to live in was nothing more than a junk room with no made up bed and no TV. The Benefits Officer decided not to take any action and allowed them just to stop claiming.

As we had never dealt with a fraud case before, without the help of the local authority we didn’t have enough evidence to pursue a notice so the case was closed.

We dealt with more complaints over the years from the Daughter but still didn’t have the evidence needed.

In 2015 a right to buy application came in from our Tenant which also incorporated the Daughter and her Husband. At this time we had just set up the Mercian Tenancy Fraud Forum where I met the Senior Fraud Officer from Powys Council who started to educate us on Fraud.

We looked deeper at the right to buy request and found that we could class it as a potential fraud. We refused the request and decided to open a full fraud case. We worked with Powys Council and built up a very secure case. At all times our Tenant stated that he still lived in our property with his Daughter and her Family.

We spoke to neighbours around our property and around his partner’s property and got 10 witnesses who all confirmed that either he didn’t live in our property or that he had lived with his partner for a number of years. He was interviewed under caution but still said he lived at our property.

His Daughter at all times had a massive influence over him and never allowed him to speak without her except under caution. The case went to court where our Tenant pleaded not guilty. The next hearing is in February.

At the same time we are going for possession of the property which is in court in January. We are very confident that we have enough evidence to win both cases.

Tenancy Fraud Tenancy fraud occurs when a housing association or council home is occupied by someone who is either not legally entitled to be there or has obtained use of the property fraudulently.

Tenancy fraud causes significant social harm and can lead to anti-social behaviour. It deprives legitimate and deserving tenants access to affordable homes and has a direct impact on local people, their families and their communities.

Application fraud (also called allocation fraud): A prospective tenant either knowingly provides false information on their housing application in order to gain a property or applies for multiple properties in different allocations and through different landlords.

Key-selling fraud: A tenant or an employee of a housing association receives a one-off payment to give the keys of a property to someone who is not entitled to live there.

Right-to-buy/right-to-acquire fraud: Your Right to Buy

SUB LETTING

A tenant knowingly provides false information when applying to buy the house they live in under the scheme.

Subletting fraud: A tenant rents out all or part of their property on a short- or long term basis to someone else for private rental rates with-out the knowledge or permission of the landlord.

Succession fraud: A person moves into a property when the legal tenant either dies or moves away, and that person does not have the right to move in.

Contact Us Mercian Tenancy Fraud Forum Chair: Paul Adams padams@fortisliving.com Vice Chair: Lisa Sutton Lisa.sutton@rooftopgroup.org @MercianTFF