HomeSwap Direct Scheme
Communities and Local Government

Jim Fitzpatrick (Poplar and Limehouse, Labour)

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government what assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the HomeSwap Direct scheme at screening out sub-letting of council and registered social landlord properties; and if he will make a statement.

Grant Shapps (Minister of State (Housing and Local Government), Communities and Local Government; Welwyn Hatfield, Conservative)

In addition to the Government's current £20 million package to help landlords tackle social housing fraud, a consultation was launched on 11 January that put forward proposals that would increase the deterrent to tenants considering cheating the system, allow those who do cheat to be detected more easily and punished more severely, and encourage social landlords to take a more proactive approach to tackling tenancy fraud.

The consultation runs until 4 April and can be found at:

http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/housing/pdf/2064044.pdf

HomeSwap Direct was launched in October 2011 to allow social tenants who wish to move through a mutual exchange to see details of all possible properties nationwide. It is the responsibility of landlords to check tenant records before approving an exchange.

The scheme has operated very successfully since its launch, with tenants carrying out over 280,000 searches of the property data held on HomeSwap Direct.