Stepping up our work to stop housing cheats: we’ve signed the Fraud Pledge

We’ve signed up to the Fraud Pledge, from Preventing Charity Fraud, as part of our commitment to managing the risk of housing fraud – helping to improve social housing supply for those in genuine need and prevent crucial funds being taken away from services for our customers.

What is the Fraud Pledge?

We pledge to work actively to prevent fraud wherever it might occur in our organisation.

We promise to:

1. Appoint a suitable person (staff member, volunteer or trustee) to champion counter fraud work throughout our organisation.
2. Ensure that all our trustees are aware of their legal duty to protect the charity’s assets.
3. Consult with staff, volunteers and trustees to identify the types of fraud that threaten us and the ways we can prevent them.
4. Create a written fraud policy and share it regularly – with staff, volunteers and trustees – so that everyone understands what fraud is and how they can help prevent it.
5. Perform checks on the individuals and organisations with whom we have a financial relationship.
6. Assess each year how well our fraud controls are working, taking into account new risks and making improvements as needed.

Our work to tackle housing fraud

Our Legal Services team works proactively with partners including Oldham Council and Greater Manchester Police (GMP) to prevent, detect and respond to housing fraud. We investigate all reports and take action against offenders. They are likely to lose their tenancy and they could lose their right to council housing in the future if they’re caught committing housing tenancy fraud.

Offenders may also be fined or sent to prison if the fraud is serious.

What is housing fraud?

There are different types of housing fraud and the most common are:

Housing tenancy fraud, such as:

• Giving false information on housing applications
• Subletting without permission
• Living in a property after someone has died, without the right to do so
• Key selling – a customer giving their keys to another person in return for financial gain without informing us, their landlord.

Right to Buy/Right to Acquire fraud, such as:

• Giving false information when applying to buy the house they have been living in
• Attempting to purchase a property whilst not using it as their sole or principal home
• Not disclosing previous rent arrears, possession orders, transfers or evictions.

Mohammed Yasser, FCHO’s Head of Legal Services says: “Housing fraud cheats other people out of homes that they need, and with thousands of people on social housing waiting lists locally, housing fraud is wholly unacceptable.

“Fraud is an ever-evolving and increasing criminal threat to society and signing up the Fraud Pledge is another step in our work to fight housing fraud.”

Help us tackle housing fraud

Your help in reporting housing fraud is important because you can see what’s happening in your neighbourhood.

• You might know that somebody has a home the landlord doesn’t know about or has given false information in their housing application
• You might suspect someone of housing fraud having seen them collect rent from your neighbours
• You might be suspicious because the tenants of a property keep changing

If you suspect someone is committing housing fraud, let us know. You can make reports anonymously and all information you supply will be held in the strictest confidence.

How to report housing fraud

You can report housing fraud anonymously by:

Emailing fraud@fcho.co.uk 

Filling in a quick form online

Calling us on 0161 393 7117