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Fined for subletting PCH property to friend

A woman who sublet her Plymouth Community Homes property for around seven years has been ordered to pay £580 by Plymouth magistrates.

Marita Head of Lower Trevivian, St Clether, Launceston, pleaded guilty to knowingly subletting a social housing property in Swinburne Gardens between 15 January 2013 and 16 October 2018. She was fined £100 and ordered to pay £450 costs and £50 victim surcharge.

The court heard the 60-year-old had been a tenant at the house since 2005 with the most recent tenancy agreement with Plymouth Community Homes signed in 2011. She had moved in with her partner in Cornwall sometime in 2011/12 and a couple of weeks after leaving, she let her friend move into the property as he had nowhere else to stay. She gave him the rent payment card for the property and he paid the rent from that point.

Plymouth Community Homes had no indication from Head that she was not living in the house. She continued to pay her Council Tax by Direct Debit.

By way of explanation, she said that she had kept the property originally in case the relationship in Cornwall did not work, after this she felt like she could not ask her friend to leave the property. She argued she did not realise that she could not sub-let the property, and hadn’t really thought about it. Sentencing her, the magistrates took into account her early guilty plea, previous good character and the fact that she made no profit.

Cabinet Member for Housing and Co-operative Development, Councillor Chris Penberthy said: “That house could have gone to a family in need. Social housing is for those who need it and there is a huge waiting list of people who sometimes have to wait years. To glibly give a property to a friend like this beggars belief. It is beyond thoughtless."