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Press Release

18 November 2019

Cracking down on fraud in Fareham

Residents are being called on to report incidents of fraud in the Fareham Borough as part of International Fraud Awareness Week.

The Council has an ongoing campaign to prevent fraud and has backed the global campaign to highlight the problem of fraud in the Borough.

Last year 1,865 cases of fraud were investigated with a total value of £300,336 recovered. The largest area of fraud is false claims for Housing Benefit and Council Tax Support which totalled £220,212 last year in the Fareham Borough.

Housing fraud has increased nationally over the last few years and the Council investigates all reports of fraud from Right to Buy checks to reports of empty and abandoned homes.

In 2018/19 201 cases were investigated by Fareham Borough Council and three social housing properties were recovered as a result of investigations, meaning that other families from the waiting list could be re-homed. A number of Right to Buy applications were also prevented from being processed resulting in no loss of homes to the Council.

Residents are asked to be vigilant and look out for the following:

Subletting properties – the tenant is allowing someone else to live there
Empty/abandoned homes
Selling keys
Applying for a Right to Buy when they are not living in that property so have breached their tenancy

Council Tax Discount fraud is also costly with 38 cases last year resulting in a further £31,967 Council Tax being billed.

People can report Fraud by emailing investigations@fareham.gov.uk or corporatefraud@fareham.gov.uk, calling the fraud hotline on 01329 824667, or downloading the Fareham Fraud app on Apple or Android phones.

For more information about Fraud please visit www.fareham.gov.uk and search for ‘Fraud’ in the A-Z.’

ENDS