In the past this has been predominantly a local concern for councils and residential social landlords (RSLs), who have made great progress in recent years tackling tenancy fraud.
The issue’s recent high-profile is recognition that the dual pressures on social housing and public finances have made the current scale of unlawful subletting intolerable. This recent impetus has meant extra resources and a further round of a National Fraud Initiative data-matching, targeting the recovery 10,000 unlawfully sublet properties.
But has this one-off crackdown gone far enough? With an estimated 50,000 properties being unlawfully sublet, at a cost of £75,000 per property every three years, and 1.76 million families on the housing waiting lists, there is an urgent case to make for more radical and far-reaching changes. In ‘Don’t Let On’, we argue the case for the Government to make legislative changes that would effectively criminalise unlawful subletting. This would aid the housing fraud investigation process, create a greater deterrence and provoke a shift in societal attitudes towards the offence.
The crackdown has not engaged in any of the systemic factors that prevent local authorities recovering sublet properties, nor addressed the lack of parity between unlawful subletting and other types of benefit fraud. Unlike misuse of benefit entitlements, the fraudulent use of social housing for personal gain is a civil rather than criminal offence. This distinction has implications for both institutional and societal perceptions of the severity of the offence.
Our research found that 68 per cent of housing professionals we surveyed feel that subletting is not taken as seriously as other types of benefit fraud by members of the public. Perhaps more worryingly, 46 per cent feel that is not taken as seriously by other agencies they work with to share information. Recovering a sublet property is dependent on the landlord’s ability to obtain evidence demonstrating the fraud. In many cases the information held by schools, GPs, the DVLA, DWP or credit and utility companies can add decisive evidential weight to the case being made against the suspected subletter. But in reality social landlords frequently find the flow of information between these agencies blocked by an unwillingness to stray into the vagaries of the Data Protection Act for what is only a civil offence. Criminalisation would provide the legal clarity needed for gatekeepers in these agencies to unblock the flows of information.
There is also a pressing need to change the public perception of unlawful subletting. If accompanied by a sufficiently broad public information campaign, criminalisation would help to foster a greater understanding of the high social and financial costs of the offence, reduce public apathy towards it and also create a greater deterrence.
Our research found that 92 per cent of housing professionals we surveyed felt that establishing parity between subletting and other types of benefit fraud would help their efforts to tackle the problem. It is imperative that central government now makes the changes that will enable local authorities and RSLs to galvanise their efforts and begin to address subletting on the scale that is necessitated by intense housing and financial pressures.
Photo: Poolski 2007
Most government officials and MP’s are on the fiddle – why shouldn’t a few landlords fiddle a few extra bob from the taxpayer as well?
Why is it that some people’s response to any social problem is to reach for the big gun of the criminal law, adding to an ever-increasing level of state control over peoples’ lives (usually those people on low incomes). Criminalising social problems has too often been the response of government and it doesn’t solve anything – witness the failures of ASBOs. Hard cases and knee jerk reactions in the desire to be seen to “do something” all make bad law.
There are already plenty of effective legal remedies to stop unlawful sub-letting (eg possession proceedings) provided that social landlords manage their housing stock effectively. Criminalising the issue will not solve poor stock management and will also necessitate considerable extra cost in detecting, proving, prosecuting and punishing the new offence.
Sub-letting is not all bad – tenants may have perfectly legitimate reasons for leaving their property for a long period of time and sub-letting ensures that the place is occupied, that someone is housed and that rent bills are met.
The same logic being used by this author could be used to argue for criminalising people who fall behind with their rent.
Hundreds of vulnerable people are waiting for somewhere to live, and sick minded thieves, are stealing from hard working families. Three years in prison would sort out these rats