Former council tenant who owned three properties given suspended sentence and ordered to pay £70K compensation
A Camden council tenant, who for a period of seven years failed to disclose to the council that he owned three houses in Haringey, has been given a suspended sentence and ordered to pay over £80,000.
On Monday January 20th at Wood Green Crown Court Mr Jamir Hussain, 40, of St Margaret Road, Tottenham, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to two years imprisonment suspended for two years, fined £10,000, ordered to pay £73,767 in compensation to local and central government as well as Camden Council’s costs of £4,745.
The fraud came to light when the tenant applied to purchase his Camden council flat. Council tenants must inform the council if they own any property, but Mr Hussain failed to do so.
Mr Hussain gave up possession of the flat when the fraud was detected. However, the Honour Judge Lucas took a very serious view of the offences, which he told the court were motivated by greed and could have resulted in Mr Hussain unfairly purchasing a property at a substantial discount and at the expense of the genuinely needy who could have made use of it.
The court also heard that Mr Hussain was in the processing of selling one of his properties in order to pay off loans he had taken out to pay the compensation.
We have over 6,000 families on our housing waiting list in desperate need, so it is welcome to see our enforcement work returning a council home that can make a real difference to a family in our borough.
We are doing everything in our power to increase the supply of affordable and secure housing in Camden. Our Community Investment Programme will ensure that fewer homes are lost and more are built. £1bn is being invested to bring forward schemes to build more council housing, buy back council homes previously sold off under right to buy and replace old low-quality housing.
