Forum Topic

Illegal sub-letting of council houses.

I hear that there's an increase of illegal sub-letting of council flats and houses. I wonder if this might be happening in Ealing? How does one know?

Gerry Tan ● 4534d6 Comments

How can one qualify to get a Housing Association flat(or better still, a house)?

Gerry Tan ● 4534d

In the block one of my friends lived in, all of the Housing Association flats were built for key workers were pretty much immediately sub-let. The Housing Association were't the slightest bit interested in doing anything about the problem and it's ironic that taxpayer funds allocated for key workers were ultimately used by the keyworkers to generate a second income that in most cases almost certainly wasn't declared to HMRC i.e. they were paid by the system and then helping themselves to a bit more on the side with the Housing Association complicit in this one and busy requesting even more funding to the housing "crisis".

Chris Martin ● 4534d

I wonder what homeless people or those families who are in council subsidised b&b think of these people who are in breach of their tenancy agreement and who should be evicted on the grounds that they have abused the privilege of being provided public housing. If they think their human rights have been neglected they should have thought about that before taking liberties. What about the human rights of the homeless etc?.If they have enough space in their flat or house that they can rent a room, then they are obviously in a property that is too big for them on the grounds of need, which is the criteria for assessment to public housing.

Keith Iddon ● 4534d

Oh dear, the human rights mantra again!!!This seems to be there to help all the wrong people!

Jean F Fernandez ● 4534d

I'm surprised Asha at your estimate of 60% of Council housing being sub-let. I know it happens in Ealing, but 60% is much higher than the correct %age.

Gerry Tan ● 4534d

Of course it is happening in Ealing, Acton. Everywhere.I would say if i had to guess, maybe 60% are sub let to Polish or Eastern Europeans.How do i know. Well firstly,  I used to work in Housing and we would have to investigate but we never had enough resources or time, so no action would ever be taken. Once I had to interview someone but he knew the council had no power to do anything. I tried to scare him telling him we would take the flat away from him etc but he claimed his human rights would be breached as he had small children.

Asha Smith ● 4534d