Westminster Council has recovered 13 council homes in areas including Mayfair and Soho after tenants were found to have illegally sublet the properties or left them empty.

The homes were recovered between April and September in a tenancy fraud crackdown. Maida Vale, St John’s Wood, Paddington and Pimlico were also among the neighbourhoods where investigators uncovered breaches. The properties comprised six one-bedroom, five two-bedroom and two three-bedroom homes.

The recoveries come as London boroughs face severe budget pressures from housing homeless people in temporary accommodation. Bringing existing council homes back into use offers one way to ease that pressure, although investigating tenancy breaches itself requires substantial resources.

Westminster’s Corporate Anti-Fraud Service has 248 live cases, more than a third opened between 1 April and 30 September, the council’s Mid-Year Counter Fraud Report states. These remain ongoing cases, distinct from the breaches behind the completed recoveries.

The council said its anti-fraud team achieved 39 positive outcomes over the six-month period, generating estimated savings of £476,430 and identifying a notional loss of £336,915. Those figures describe different financial measures; neither should be read as cash recovered from the 13 homes.

The report describes tenancy fraud as a high-risk issue, sometimes accounting for more than 65% of an investigator’s caseload. It acknowledges that investigations can be resource-intensive and says the service continues to explore technology alongside the full extent of legislation to improve efficiency.

Earlier in the year, Westminster prosecuted a man who had fraudulently obtained a council flat near Buckingham Palace. He was ordered to repay £500,000 after purchasing the Pimlico property through Right to Buy with a £100,000 discount.

Other boroughs are pursuing similar action. Hammersmith and Fulham said it had launched investigations into 33 properties in 2025 and 2026. For councils, the practical challenge is to recover homes while managing both the cost of investigations and the continuing expense of temporary accommodation.