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.

By the way that’s not even a searchable data base. Even land registry can’t be searched by name.

As for Adit Hodxa, or anyone else, the council had their date or birth, country and place or birth and they can check on the respective database in that country.

It’s not the rocket science you would like it to be.

Where did I suggest that? You’re mixing me up with someone else

There are a number of posts that suggest she is being picked on unfairly because and i quote,'She is black and foreign'. That is suggesting that she is not in the wrong. It is written in defence of her. See the quote I shared above.

Ok so we check adits country (although we still can’t search property data baes by name or DOB btw)

what if he owns property in a country other than the one he was born in?

I wouldn’t be against ongoing checks that social housing tenants are still inhabiting the property in line with the rules of that housing. Physical checks would have to be done with notice and respecting quiet enjoyment. Desktop checks might also be useful (though not with Royal Mail as a regulator.- ??).

However, it must be inline with the rules of the tenancy, which may not say that the tenant is prohibited from owning any other property, in the UK or abroad. We might all think that’s a very fair rule, but it might not be codified in tenancies from a decade or two ago.

You’ve shared one. Others?

And, for the nth time, that one post is not defending her ongoing holding of the tenancy, as you asserted “posters” were doing at 0749:

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.

Pointing out that coverage of an issue may be racist is not the same as saying “and therefore the person in the coverage has done nothing wrong”

This is really Billy Basic.

There are searchable databases.

As for property in a third country then income needs to be declared with HMRC.

I hope you are not suggesting that someone who has a property in a third country is eligible for council housing here?

I would say the tone of many posts including yours, are not blaming Fatima Bio . One poster explains how it may be wrong in theory but she has done it as well for her daughter's social property.
It should set alarm bells ringing about the subletting of social properties.
Fatima Bio has made herself look corrupt by behaving like this. From some of the posts on here it sounds as if this behaviour is not uncommon.

Bollocks. She knew. She just wasn't bothered. Who thinks that somebody in her position, not even living in the country, would ever be entitled to keep hold of scarce, public property that thousands of people are on waiting lists to get hold of? Nobody, that's who. She's clearly not a stupid woman. Just a greedy, selfish and entitled one.

You are looking at this so simplistically, and through very uk centric eyes

firstly, the data bases are not searchable by name or date of birth.

secondly, it should be obvious many of the countries round the world inc Sierra Leone have poor/ incomplete record keeping as well as being corrupt.

thirdly, ardit is Albanian. Somehow we manage to confirm he doesn’t have any property in Albania. What about the farm he owns in Russia? What about his families property portfolio registered under his father, or a corporation? hardly foolproof

fouth, HMRC is irrelevant. They don’t share records with housing associations and local authorities plus it’s very likely someone could own an asset that produces no income at all- an empty property, one that they let a friend live in.

not all countries are like the uk. Owning a £10k house in the Albanian countryside doesn’t bring the rental opportunities the uk does. They may also simply own land.

it’s a blunt instrument and even with all the above which makes it a useless check, you’re ignoring the fact that this searching mechanism doesn’t exist.

Yes she knew. Less high profile people are caught every day doing this, and they know too

As others have said, it's because the situation changed over time.
At the time my older relatives had council housing it was very normal and they were ableito buy it in the 80s for very little. Then sold it when housing properties skyrocketed and are now very well off (and very against benefits).
By the 90s/2000s the situation had changed but someone in the same situation as the subject here would qualify for housing. She shouldn't have kept it. But it wasn't unusual for people in her situation to get it so it's not like more deserving British families were losing out.
Now it's much harder for families in need to get that sort of housing so I can understand the resentment when you see people who already have it.

The main injustice is time. It's when you needed help, not who you are. I agree that people who were helped initially and whose circumstances improved massively should be thinking about the people behind them and not pulling up the ladder. I'd be in favour of stricter rules on people to move out. It would also be nice if people exercised their own common decency there. But equally, a lot of people are absolutely furious at things like inheritance tax or asset tax because they want to pass on what they own. But they were only able to own it, (especially in the case of people who were given council houses they later bought), because of when they entered the housing market.

Oh so it’s “tone”, is it? No quotes?

Your point was:

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.

I have repeatedly said that she should have surrendered the lease as soon as Southwark was not her primary residence. This was, at the latest, 2018, when her husband became president, but may well have been earlier than this.

Could you clarify for me how that is me “defending… her being allowed to retain her council property in the UK?”

For the cheap seats: I absolutely do blame her for retaining her property in Southwark after the mid-late 2010s. What I do not blame her for is taking the original lease in 2007, when she lived and worked and was raising two kids in London.

And you are ignoring the fact that people are exploiting the system.

In fact, you seem be looking for ways to prove that checks can’t be made.

It can be done. Joining databases, using local solicitors and databases.
You don’t want it to be.

Why should Adut profit from his seaside house and enjoy cheap council housing in the UK?

I’m not ignoring it. The reason it happens is that it’s currently impossible to police.

Your ideas are bizarre- pick a local solicitor where?!
You have this idea that people come from one country and their whole life is there.
People who immigrate tend to live more international lifestyles. The uk is an insular county, but Parts of the world like Africa and Eastern Europe have been chopped up and redistributed multiple times in our lifetime into their present day countries.
People from these countries have ties all over.

plus you are completely ignoring the small point of data protection laws both here and abroad.

No probably about it. This behaviour is robbing thousands of families of a safe, appropriate roof, and condemning them to years in often unhealthy temporary conditions. This makes me really cross.

I hope you are not suggesting that someone who has a property in a third country is eligible for council housing here?

I would be curious to know what was and wasn’t excluded from the council housing rules in different decades. I would assume that someone with such a property would probably be excluded from joining the waiting lists today, unless perhaps the property was inaccessible in a war zone or similar. But that may not have been the case 2-4 decades ago, of course.

Look back at my posts, I included two quotes for you. However, you are becoming aggressive by constantly asking for quotations. I have already included two and you mocked me for this. It would appear that you are so set on defending the status quo of social housing tenancies that you are failing to acknowledge the corruption that exists and which prevents worthy tenants from being housed.
How do you know that Fatima Bio did not have other properties in Sierre Leone or access to family money in 2007? By her own actions she behaved in a corrupt illegal manner by keeping the council tenancy, she may well have done the same in 2007. How do you know how she secured the council property in the first place. We don't know but the evidence of her recent corrupt behaviour is not reassuring.

It is/ was very common for economic immigrants to hold property abroad. But you need to consider property isn’t always valuable.

Eastern European / Irish migrants back in the day for example would commonly have land or property in the family going back generations. My own family did

but when you’ve come to the uk for work, it’s not usable as a property to live in is it?

now, it’s not accepted nowadays because we hate foreigners more (if that’s possible!) but I would imagine the mirgrant journey from a poor country hasn’t changed much.

if you declare your property abroad it obviously rules you out nowadays. But why would you declare it knowing they won’t find it ?

No one is bashing social housing.

Neither of these were quotes, if this is what you mean?

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 first, I have already addressed - that noting coverage of an issue may be racist is not the same as defending the actions of the subject of the coverage:

The second, if you had actually quoted the post, does not mention Fatima Bio at all. It talks about the poster’s family. So it is also not defending Fatima.

I note that you find me aggressive. If a poster claims something that I think is incorrect, I challenge it. If I don’t get an answer, I continue to challenge it. If you find that aggressive, so be it.

You then decided to talk about tone, citing me, but ignoring my actual words about Fatima and the lease post her marriage. I could consider that deliberate and passive aggressive, if I felt so inclined, of course.

How do you know that Fatima Bio did not have other properties in Sierre Leone or access to family money in 2007? By her own actions she behaved in a corrupt illegal manner by keeping the council tenancy, she may well have done the same in 2007. How do you know how she secured the council property in the first place. We don't know but the evidence of her recent corrupt behaviour is not reassuring.

I don’t, and you don’t. However, she did not meet her current husband until 2012 and he led a couple of military coups and all that jazz. So I would put the balance of probability at the other properties in Sierra Leone only arising at some point after they met. Indeed, there were a number acquired in 2018 in her name and that of her mother.

I’m not sure if keeping a council house in breach of tenancy rules is illegal, but prepared to learn what law it breaks, if it does. Obviously a breach of contract can lead to eviction if the breach isn’t remedied.

(Separately, it isn’t known whether Southwark’s rules would have disqualified someone from the council house list in 2007 if they did own
property in another country)

So many posters admit to knowing very little about the legislation around social housing. I think we all agree that social housing is necessary but that there is a lot of corruption both past and present in managing tenancies. There are so many posts on here that shocked me about using social housing as an income by sub letting.
When I was a child living in Scotland, social housing was the norm. Beautifully looked after properties. People stayed there for life. Now, few people do that, our lives are transitory. I think it is probably time to review both allocation and tenancies so that there is good quality housing for young families and people in need. Preferably for those who have links to a specific area and have lived there for a number of years.