Leaseholder fined for right to buy claim

The judge at Cambridge County Court awarded the council repayment of the £38,000 discount plus interest of £20,822.

An investigation by the council’s audit team discovered that the owner of a Tottenham flat had not occupied it as their principle home.

Arm’s-length management organisation Homes for Haringey’s home ownership team took action after consulting the council’s legal services.

Jackie Thomas, executive director of housing management at the ALMO, said: ‘We take tenancy fraud very seriously. We will continue to work in earnest to recover costs and homes which tenants and leaseholders are not entitled to.

‘It is essential that tenants meet all the correct criteria when either purchasing or renting their homes, and do not benefit from huge discounts while they live in another property.’

Following trial on 6 July, judgement was handed down on 18 August.

Haringey Council is now deciding whether to take additional legal action against the offender, who will also pay all legal costs in the case.

Readers' comments (3)

• stephen west | 25/08/2009 5:04 pm

  Whoever the a wrongful / sub tenant / leaseholder was he got off light having to pay back the ALMO/ Haringey Council £58,000 as no doubt after his Section 125 had expired he would have been hit with tens of thousands of pounds worth of repair and maintenance charges by his over zealous and poorly managed landlord who messed up spectacularly by not undertaking the correct checks to ascertain that he/she was the lawful tenant exercising his/ her Right to Buy.
  
  Still just think of it that's one less mug of a leaseholder who will benefit by not having to shell out thousands to an incompetent landlord unlike the rest of us. Who in their right mind would want to buy under Right to Buy in this present financial climate knowing how landlords overload leaseholders with costly repair and maintenance charges that put their leaseholders in crippling debt for the rest of their lives.
  
  Stephen West
  
  Acting Chair Orbit Bexley Housing Association Independent Leaseholders Group

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• Marty21 | 26/08/2009 4:24 pm

  I would never, If I was a council tenant, buy the leasehold of a flat in a block, as service charges for renewal of lifts, roofs, entry-phones,etc are bound to be expensive. A lot of RTB tenants in the 80s were seduced by the discounts and did not factor in service charges of the future .

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• 

  ILAG | 27/08/2009 1:19 am

  Particularly with the massive incompetence, wastefulness, and lack of transparency and equality under the law (compared with their private sector freeholder cousins) that local authority freeholder landlords exhibit, year after year. With their QLTA "partnered" contractors (and their sub-sub-sub contractors) which help create the gold plated major works charges that said LA's dish out to their long suffering RTB leaseholders.
  
  A quick look at recent IH research (thanks Keith):
  
  http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/story.aspx?storycode=6504635
  
  reveals that three current or former Labour run basket case London Local Authorities create the largest major works bills for their leaseholders in the entire country.
  
  With housing departments so cretinously incompetent that their employees couldn't find their a**e with both hands. Sending out napkins with massive numbers written on them that allegedly are supposed to pass for invoices for major works charges.
  
  Privatise the stock. Remove the public sector freeholders / local authorities from the equation. Remove the legal privilege that freeholders who are also statutory bodies enjoy - then equilibrium and justice will be restored to the equation. Where an LA block is two thirds or more RTB leasehold then the rest of the flats should be mandated to be sold - by law - with share of freehold being granted to the residing leaseholders so they then finally own the property in perpetuity, can then form an RMC and finally take control of their own block maintenance costs. Free at last from the curse of LA housing department officer venality, incompetence and legal privilege.
  
  ILAG

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