Keeping a UK Council property for life even though you no longer live in the UK

[Vintlet]

This story has just been released
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyxkeny8x6o
It seems so unfair given the lack of social housing in the uk that the First Lady of Sierra Leone expected to be allowed to keep her London social housing property as a pied a terre. Surely we cannot be expected to house the world. No one in authority would have realised given that she was still paying the rent if she hadn’t boasted about keeping it on a radio interview. I wonder how many people keep and sublet uk council properties when they no longer have a right to keep it.

The government set the rent increase annually using a formula based on CPI. If costs have rocketed, CPI will too and rents will be increased

don’t forget not every house needs repairs every year. Some houses cost next to nothing to run. It all evens out.

for housing associations at least, rented stock usually runs at a surplus. That surplus is used to build new social housing.

Those things don’t work though

social housing policies aren’t that stupid

I really don’t understand posters who defend Fatima Bio, First Lady of Sierra Leone, being allowed to retain her council property in the UK. However, she is just a figurehead for all of the tenants who hang on to a UK social housing property as a fall back. Anyone who owns a house should stand to lose their council home. I know it is impossibly difficult to check who is actually living in one of an HA property and many are sublet, but given the anguish and distress of families who are living in BnBs, we have to be much stricter about taking properties back if rules are broken.
I just don’t understand justifying having a social housing property if the tenant owns a house. I read all the posts and it seems there are plenty of tenants who hang onto a property even if they don’t live in the UK. They simply sub let. It was news to me that the Manchester bombers family had a council home in the UK even though they lived in Libya. All the people defending the homes for life rules, I wonder how you can stand by and watch a young family live in appalling conditions because there are not enough social properties.
a couple of posters claim that there is not enough social housing. I quoted the stats for the huge Kings Cross development. 35% reserved as social housing. Yet tenants can buy their property at a greatly reduced rate after 5 years. That 35% allocation will fall significantly over the next few years. How can posters defend tenancies for life and the right to buy. We cannot house the world.

I really don’t understand posters who defend Fatima Bio, First Lady of Sierra Leone, being allowed to retain her council property in the UK.

Again, please quote the posters on this thread who are defending this. Because I haven’t seen any, and I too have read every post.

She probably came over, said she left her husband. Then had her children here, all on the NHS. She would be flying back to her home country all the time, whilst keeping her cheap UK base.
lots of families came over from Africa, so their husbands could ‘study’. They secured a council house, got their children into local schools and started the benefit grabbing. Then suddenly Dad has gone back to Africa to run his business.
we lived in West Africa. Lots of them had council houses back in England…..

She wasnt allowed to retain it. She broke her tenancy and when her landlord found out about it they took it away

they didn’t allow it- they didn’t know she wasn’t living there!

How much are the King’s Cross flats on the open market?

Nope - her sons are from her first husband. She studied and acted whilst she lived in London.

She absolutely should have given the property up once she had a different primary residence, but she wasn’t the “wife of an African dictator” when she got it.

Oh another student!
I rest my case.

In what way do you rest your case? Your case was that she “came over” pretending to have left her husband and to have her sons on the NHS.

ETA she was 26 or 27 when the tenancy started, by which point she or her first husband, or both, were almost certainly working.

If they can afford to buy fair enough that’s different. At the same time though if anyone is going to be forced out of their home because they can afford to buy then they’d just buy their council house, cheap and do it up for less than the cost of buying new.
Then there’s even less social housing. We have the right to buy to thank for that so where is the anger at people buying social housing on the cheap to make money from it or to keep it for life?

She said she kept the house as her children were British. I am assuming she had them here?
She secured a council house because she was here and claimed to be a student.
What degree did she secure please?

Look at the first few posts after the opening post. It is called a non story. That it has only been raised because she is black. There is the poster who admits that it is probably wrong but in common with lots of people she is hanging on to to her daughters council property and passing it on to other family members. The news report is keen to emphasise that Fatima was NOT evicted and that she agreed to give up her tenancy. No one would have realised that she no longer lived in the UK as long as she paid rent. If there are no checks on the tenancy as long as the rent is paid, how many other people do exactly the same thing? Another poster wrote that it is comparatively common for West Africans to live in the UK, acquire a right to a council tenancy and return home to Africa but retain their council property. How would the authorities know? If there was a bi yearly requirement for the tenant to prove they still lived in the property by producing a utility bill or UK job pay slip, would that not discourage tenants who no longer lived in the same place or even the same country from keeping a part of UK housing stock.

@Backedoffhackedoff. I should think the posh ones are worth millions

She has a Wikipedia entry, you can look it up.

As I said, she studied here and worked as an actress. I assume she had her children by her first husband here, yes. But not because she
”came here to have them” but because she was living here when she had them.

Did she write the Wikipedia entry?
what films was she in, I don’t recall seeing her?

But you don’t know? You don’t know how much the RTB ones are yet are posting them as an example of the unfairness in the system? Seems random

What are you talking about?! Why are you so into her education?

I could lay a bet she was on the take from day one. We have local families living in hostels, meanwhile there are people from overseas who secured one, then moved home. They often sublet them to other people from their home country. You are aware of this?

I doubt she did, given she is a public figure - but, like most Wiki entries, a variety of sources such as newspaper articles are cited.

She was born in 1980. The tenancy started in 2007. She met her second husband (Bio) in London in 2012, married him in 2013, had a son and a daughter with him (the DS sadly died soon after birth). The DD was born in London in 2014. Bio became president in 2018.

I don’t know at what point her primary residence ceased to be Southwark but I would assume by 2018 at the latest, and she should have given up the council housing at that point.

But trying to argue that she shouldn’t have got it in the first place because you don’t like her degree subject (?!?) is a… take.

(BTW she has two degrees, as you are so interested but unable to google)

Day one was the early 90s. Not today’s world

I have looked at Right Move and there are lots of very expensive flats for sale. I tried to search for ex local authority but it doesn’t specify this. I just think that 35% affordable and social housing is a high proportion but I bet that will diminish because tenants are free to buy after 5 years with a significant discount.

Spiteful, much?

ETA there seems to be no indication she was subletting, fairly sure that would have come up in news reports if so.

Are foreign students often given council housing life long tenancies?

It’s in the news because she’s the First Lady of Sierra Leone who has palaces at her disposal. But yeah sure, we’re all a bunch of racists for pointing it out 🙄