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Moss & Co.’s criminal and housing law skills benefit clients in two distinct types of subletting cases.
An old saying goes: The proof of the pudding is in the eating. If you are facing an allegation of unlawful subletting under The Prevention of Social Housing Fraud Act 2013, we suggest you dine with us. In our experience there are two types of unlawful subletting cases.
The landlord is wrong – there is no fraud
Firstly, there are those where the landlord has got it wrong. The property has not been sublet but it appears as if it has. These include cases where a family member is housesitting while the tenant is away, or where a legitimate lodger has answered the door to an enquiring housing officer, or where an adult family member is living there as caretaker whilst the tenant is unavoidably abroad. We argue that none of these are unlawful subletting provided the tenant retains the property as their main and principal home. In such cases we regularly succeed in winning the case for the tenant, sometimes without a court case and on others after proceedings have been issued.
Perhaps the landlord is right
Secondly there are those case where the property does appear to have been sublet. The landlord finds evidence by accessing bank statements showing regular payments in, sometime described as “rent”. Or they may have discovered another person registered to the address for medical, dental, educational, financial or driving purposes. Alternatively, they may have statements from neighbours or in some cases have carried out surveillance.
How the landlords get their evidence
Councils and social landlords can easily access the above information using their statutory powers of investigation where they suspect fraud. We have represented many clients in the second category who have faced this stressful and potentially devastating allegation. In case after case of this type where our client was accused of subletting, we have managed to successful make representations that the cases should not proceed.
Balancing the loss and gain
In four very recent cases with different landlords we negotiated surrender of the tenancies without prosecution. The interviews under caution were cancelled and there was no financial penalty. it is worth remembering that the clients “loss” of the council or housing association tenancy must be balanced against the very real risk that if the landlord can prove their case, then the consequences are severe. They include not only prosecution but also high value financial penalties where the council can claim all profits from the subletting and also compensation for the cost of housing people in expensive temporary accommodation when the sublet property should have been available. We have had cases where the landlords claim exceeds £100,000.
Specialist legal skills required
The work we do in these cases relies on our specialist skill sets in both housing and criminal law, a combination that is hard to find elsewhere. Unfortunately, we are unable to do this work under legal as it is uneconomic. However, we do offer a very reasonable fixed fee service. If you have read this far you are probably interested so call Gil Spurling or David Barnett on 0208 986 8336, or e mail [email protected]
Gil Spurling and David Barnett are housing fraud experts.
David Barnett