Report tenancy fraud

We rely on your help to report housing/tenancy fraud as you’re often the first to notice what’s happening in your neighbourhood, for example:

someone having another home we don't know about or has given false information in a housing or homelessness application
frequent changes in who lives at a property, especially when no council or Mears staff have visited, or if you’ve seen someone collecting rent
a property is empty and not being occupied, with the tenant only returning to collect post
a tenant moving out and letting a friend or family member stay instead.

Any information you give will be treated in strict confidence, and you don’t need to provide your name or address.

Tenancy fraud includes a number of different fraudulent activities including:

giving false information on your housing application to be wrongly given priority or a higher banding
sub-letting your social house to people who aren't allowed to live in the property under the terms of your tenancy
failing to occupy the property yourself, allowing relatives or other people to take on the property
failing to use the property as your main home or selling the key to a third party
lying about living in a property for the qualifying period in order to gain the tenancy of a tenant who has died.

We take tenancy fraud very seriously and act on all potential cases to ensure homes go to people who genuinely need them, and to prevent anyone from profiting through sub-letting or selling keys.

Our priority is always to recover the property so it can be relet to someone on the housing waiting list. Where necessary, we will use our legal powers to prosecute.

We have a contract with Ashford Borough Council, which has a dedicated fraud team that investigates cases on our behalf.

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