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Cash for houses: the scammers targeting desperate tenants on the waiting list
Stephen Delahunty has been tracking a scam in which Tower Hamlets’ residents are offered a chance to jump the housing waiting list – in exchange for thousands of pounds in cash. Illustration by Virginia Mori
“First payment to start the process is £1,500 and once you get your keys, you pay the rest.”
This is a message sent by a scammer to a resident on Tower Hamlets’ waiting list – promising to bump her up the queue for social housing, in exchange for £3,000 paid over two instalments.
More than 23,000 households are on the waiting list for housing in Tower Hamlets. One in six are living in overcrowded homes. Like in many areas, the housing crisis has left many people desperate. It also seems to have created the perfect conditions for a scam. Inside Housing has discovered that residents in Tower Hamlets have been targeted by individuals claiming to be able to move them up the queue for social housing, in exchange for cash. There is no evidence the claims are true.
Nala* received the message we started this story with. Her story began back in May, when she started to chat to someone who responded to a comment on a Tower Hamlets Community Facebook page. The individual promised in a private message to “jump her up the queue” in exchange for cash.
He told her: “I have someone in Tower Hamlets Council that is a housing officer.”
Messages shared with Inside Housing show the individual explaining that “we provide houses through your bidding portal”. He then provided her with the address of one four-bedroom house that was available on the portal in Ellesmere Road in Bow. This individual claimed he worked for Newham Council. But a spokesperson says they have no record of a current or former employee with his name and describes the approaches as “deeply concerning”.
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Claiming links to council
Inside Housing first learned of residents being targeted in the borough, both online and in the community, in March, after the issue was raised in a residents’ group.
After claiming they have links to the council, and in exchange for thousands of pounds up front, residents are being promised the type of property they need and have been bidding on for more than a decade in some cases. Over the past few months, Inside Housing has attempted to track down the individuals behind these messages.
The residents, all of whom are Somali, have spoken to Inside Housing on the condition they remain anonymous and have had their names changed as a result.
A second property that was offered to Nala was a four-bedroom property in Yeo Street. She asked the person she was communicating with if she could trust him and what would happen to her payment if she was unsuccessful, and she was advised she would get her money back via a bank transfer if that was the case.
Nala attempted to get his bank details, but says he became suspicious after she asked if she could speak in person first.
Tower Hamlets has confirmed to Inside Housing that the properties mentioned in the screenshots were advertised in December 2022. But the council also points out that property details advertised in this way are accessible to members of the public with a bidding number and application.
The image used for the Yeo Street property appears to have been taken from the developer’s website, the council says, which is different to the image that was used to advertise the property on its Homeseekers website. The developer’s images are also available to the public through its website and there is nothing to suggest that the developer or its employees are involved in the scam.
The council says: “We’ve double-checked our records and they were allocated according to our policy and with appropriate priority.”
Inside Housing posed as a resident interested in being bumped up the housing waiting list. We sent text messages to the number given to Nala, saying: “My friend introduced us in a group chat on Facebook but
I thought it might be better to chat privately about my housing situation and any advice you might have?”
He quickly responded: “Mate I don’t know who you are and what your intentions are, you could be anyone.”
Inside Housing asked if the service was only available to friends and stressed that we were not expecting the advice to be free.
He said: “It’s not that. I’m sure Nala explained everything and the process so no need to ask me.”
When pressed about being uncomfortable about going through a process that had not been explained directly, he said “there was nothing I can do” and asked not to be contacted again.
Nala says she is not surprised there are people resorting to these “middlemen” in the hope their situation improves because people have been on the list so long and they are frustrated and desperate.
“Knowing there are these middlemen that are preying on vulnerable people in this situation and using the housing system to make money – it’s not right. I started chatting to one of these people because I’m so frustrated. Sometimes I feel like just going through with it, but I shouldn’t be forced to consider such an offer.”
Abdirahim Hassan is founder of community group Coffee Afrik, which has been supporting the residents and raising a number of issues with the council. He says: “People are in the worst predicament with housing at the moment that they’re taking risks that I personally would not advise them to – which is to pay out large amounts of money when you’re already really, really struggling with individuals that are claiming that they are linked to the council. That’s a big risk, but it just shows you how desperate people are at the moment.”
Mr Hassan tells Inside Housing that he has been aware of the issues raised in this article since around December last year, when families in the area began to raise their concerns in group meetings.
“After I heard a number of these cases, I really started to dig in,” he explains. “It took me at least until around March this year to really understand the different cases and how bad they were, and collect as much evidence as possible.”
Mr Hassan says a meeting took place in the main chamber at the town hall, including members of the council’s housing team. The nearly 70 people in attendance were asked if they had paid cash or been offered the chance to in exchange for help bidding on a property. Nine people put their hands up.
Tower Hamlets says it has invited residents to present their individual allegations and complaints along with any relevant evidence consistently since the town hall meeting on 20 March 2023. It also says it has not received any information about alleged bribes or fraud that can be investigated, but such cases should be reported to the police.
Mr Hassan shared with Inside Housing the details of another individual who has been offering his services on Snapchat. An advert for his company claims it can “help you get on the top of the bidding list and find a suitable home for you in less than a month”.
Screenshots shared on this person’s Snapchat profile appear to show him talking somebody through the process for a Band A bidder. Band A refers to people in need of an urgent move.
“You will always be 1-5 in every single bid so the chances are very much higher in securing,” said another Snapchat image.
These stories remain live on a user’s profile for 24 hours and people can view them as often as they want during that period. Once the 24-hour time limit is up, Snapchat automatically deletes the story.
Inside Housing began capturing a number of these screenshots before the user appeared to block us from viewing his account. Snapchat informs users when someone screenshots a post.
Approached by strangers
However, before Inside Housing could no longer access the account, the screenshots captured suggested that the issue may not just be confined to Tower Hamlets.
One image was captioned: “Next week my focus will be around the Midlands,” and another showed a ‘property void sheet’ for a second-floor, one-bedroom property in Slough. Inside Housing could not find any evidence a company with this name exists through Companies House, and the individual has not responded to any calls or texts.
But these approaches are not just confined to social media. Inside Housing has also heard cases of residents being approached by strangers in public and after community events as far back as 2015.
Hodan* says she began chatting to a woman in a park near her house in January last year, and the conversation very quickly turned to her housing issues. This woman says she knew some people who could help.
She met her in the park the next day and handed over £1,500 as an initial payment and was told the total would be around £6,000 for a ground-floor flat.
Hodan says she had not seen this person before in the community, but she said she could help and was collecting the money on behalf of people connected to the council, although there is no evidence they were.
“They took the money and then they didn’t do anything at all with it. At first I was excited about it because of my kids and how my situation is affecting them, but I’m not sure I could have got the total amount anyway.”
Hodan lives with her husband and six children in a one-bedroom flat and has been on the waiting list since around 2012. “I was desperate. I paid the money because my children have nowhere to study and struggle studying at home.”
In another incident, Jawahir* tells Inside Housing she was approached by someone near the Redcoat community centre and mosque, which is not far from where she lives. “He approached me after an event, we were chatting, and got on to the issue of housing and he said there was an easy way out. I was quite surprised so I took his number.”
In a second meeting that took place near Jubilee Park, Jawahir says she asked him questions about whether there was a risk of losing her money, or getting someone in trouble for having her current home repossessed.
But she was assured that there was no danger in that as it could be explained away as a mistake, such as a typing error in the system.
“He wanted £5,000 and I didn’t have that kind of money,” she explains.
At the time she was approached in 2015, she had three children and was looking for a three-bedroom house. She has been on the waiting list since 2006.
Now, with six children in a one-bedroom apartment, Jawahir is another victim of chronic overcrowding in the borough.
Around one in six households in the borough are classed as overcrowded, which is three times the national average, and above the inner London average where overcrowding levels are typically high.
To help address overcrowding, Tower Hamlets says it is upgrading existing homes and looking at extending suitable properties, or providing knock-throughs, but described the process as “challenging given our existing housing stock”.
A spokesperson adds: “Our allocations scheme outlines the process for granting priority for housing. It also makes it clear how decisions are made so that people who are not offered a home can understand how priority for housing is decided and have trust and confidence in how decisions are made.”
The Local Government Association says its members have not received any similar reports of people on the housing waiting list being approached in this way.
Andrew Lane, a social housing and public law barrister at Cornerstone, says he has not heard of anything this systematic, but says it would not be impossible.
Mr Lane says he worked on a case recently where a housing association employee was giving out tenancies to people he knew, but at a local authority it would be more difficult to act in this way and “my experience is that councils are quite good at stamping out this sort of behaviour”.
This is because local authorities are bound by Part Six of the Housing Act 1996. “So it sounds more like a scam,” he adds.
*Names have been changed
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