Zwei verhaftete, als die Polizei vermutete, dass die Mitarbeiter des „korrupten“ Ratsmitarbeiter Hunderte von Häusern für Bargeld vergeben haben

I’m surprised this doesn’t happen more often. Or perhaps it does and we don’t hear about it.

Getting a council house is big money. A lifetime of cheap rent saving over ten of thousand a year in places like London – all non-means tested. Then an opportunity to buy the house at discount later on.

It’s been an open secret that they are just used as vehicle to make money and council officials have been abusing the allocations.

This happens a lot more than what we’re told unfortunately, a lot of councils across the country have this issue.

There have also been high profile cases of council employees diverting council tax payments in to their own bank accounts. I’ll remember a recent news story about someone who did in this Aberdeen, the guy pocketed well over a million quid before they caught him.

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clynv3el2w5o](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clynv3el2w5o)

*Officers believe homes were sometimes sublet by associates of housing officers. Investigators also believe there was blatant advertising on social media offering prospective tenants a means to beat the queue.*

*The force said: „As part of this process, prospective tenants paid fraudsters ‚finder’s fees‘, and inflated rents.*

So not even handing over a council house to someone for a one-off fee – but allocate to an associate who then sublets the property at a higher rent – and I assume after the qualifying time the associate can then purchase the property under RTB and split the profit with the housing officer.

I am sure some – what appears to be – suspect stuff goes on in most councils. E.g. Union Stewards working for a Council might be allocated a nice council house each which they can later buy under RTB.

A typical free market weekly rent for a 2-bedroom flat in London Westminster is around £600, or £31,200 per year.

The average council rent for a 2-bedroom flat in London Westminster is around £140 per week or £7,280 per year. So less than a quarter of the market value rent.

That is a net annual loss of £23,920 per council flat in terms of potential income left on the table.

It is, of course, a little more complicated than that. The open rental market in Westminster will include lots of 2-bedroom flats that are very spacious & luxurious. Their correspondingly high rent will inflate the average. But many will also be tiny and squalid which will drag it back down.

So, a Council Flat in London is, effectively, a very large lifelong subsidy. It is allocated within a system that is very tempting – and quite easy? – to be abused if a housing official is corrupt.

Council flat allocation needs to be much more tightly controlled to prevent abuse.

And ‚Right to Buy‘ should be scrapped in its current form. Instead, you can only buy your council flat at its full market price, no discounts. And all income from the sale is ring-fenced to build replacement council housing. It cannot be used for any other purpose.