Tenancy fraud

Types of tenancy fraud and how to report it.

Common types of tenancy fraud

Tenancy fraud is when a council tenant:

  • is not living in their property as their only or main home
  • has rented out their property and is not living there; it is a criminal offence to sublet a council tenancy without permission
  • tries to take over a tenancy after the tenant’s death when they are not eligible; this usually involves a person claiming to have lived with the deceased tenant before their death, when they in fact lived elsewhere 
  • knowingly provides false information or fails to disclose information when applying to buy a property under the Right to Buy scheme
  • has or is attempting to get social housing based on false information they have provided, for example, someone failing to tell us they already own a property

We also investigate fraudulent assignment and mutual exchange applications. 

Report housing fraud

Help us to tackle social housing fraud so that we can be fair to all of our residents and allocate housing to those who are entitled to it. 

To report housing fraud, you can email caft@croydon.gov.uk. You do not have to provide your personal details.

Why tackling housing fraud is important

We are in a national housing crisis. There are currently over 10,000 households on our housing register waiting to access social housing and we have a very limited number of properties to let each year.

Households may wait for years for an offer of suitable accommodation, often in expensive temporary accommodation which puts a huge strain on council budgets. Housing fraud reduces the availability of social housing at a time of extreme demand. Every property subject to housing fraud is a property that could potentially be used to house a person or family on the waiting list.

The action we take against housing fraud

We take housing tenancy fraud very seriously and we have a proven track record of dealing with it.  We have:

  • recovered 29 properties since April 2023
  • each of the recovered properties were allocated to Croydon residents in need of housing
  • prevented 3 fraudulent right to buy applications

The action we take will depend on the type and scale of the fraud committed. These actions include the following.

Possession orders to recover the property

Someone who has been evicted because they committed tenancy fraud is very unlikely to be given a social housing tenancy again.

Criminal prosecution

Criminal prosecution under the Fraud Act 2006 or the Prevention of Social Housing Fraud Act 2013 can result in: 

  • a prison sentence of up to 2 years
  • money orders including Unlawful Profit Orders, which recover profits made from the fraud
  • compensation orders, which recover money lost by the council as a result of the tenancy fraud

We can choose to pursue more than one of these options.