Birmingham Council for instance, has reportedly recovered £4.9 million in "wrongly claimed" housing benefit covering supported exempt PRS accommodation and cancelled 3000 benefit claims.

Some landlords supposedly providing this type of accommodation to vulnerable tenants have been found to be making fraudulent benefit claims by using so called "ghost tenants" who don't actually live at the given address, if they exist at all. Information provided by the police suggests that some of the owners of these properties are making up to half a million pounds a month in profit via this business model.

A private members bill to regulate this part of the PRS is on its way through Parliament and reached the 2nd Reading stage late last year. The Government also provided £20 million to local authorities to help improve the situation in this sector, including £3 million to Birmingham Council where the number of beds in the sector has risen from 3,679 in 2014 to 22,000 in 2022.

Guy Chaundy, Assistant Director of Housing Strategy at Birmingham Council is quoted in The Guardian as saying "Ghost tenancies are yet another reason why the government needs to commit to urgent reform of the sector ...".

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