Questions raised after convicted Edinburgh landlord awarded £8m homeless contracts

Councillors have raised questions over the due diligence carried out into the award of homeless housing contracts worth almost £8 million to a company run by a convicted Edinburgh landlord.

William Lennie, director of Edinburgh housing firm Phoenix Properties Edinburgh Ltd, had pled guilty to charges of unregistered lets and unlicensed HMOs in 2010.

The firm was awarded two homeless housing contracts worth up to £7,996,785 by the council in May.

After Mr Lennie’s background was reported by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, Green councilor Alex Staniforth raised an emergency motion at Thursday’s meeting of the city’s Finance and Resources Committee meeting.

He wrote that there was “concern” over the award for the contract, and called on council officers to brief them on the ‘due diligence followed’ in awarding the contract.

However, the matter was then moved to the meeting’s ‘B’ agenda, where it was discussed in private – a decision attributed to there being “commercially sensitive” issues being discussed.

It is understood that the motion and an addendum by the Conservative group asking council officers to specifically detail what due diligence checks were carried out, both passed.

When approached by a reporter earlier this month, Mr Lennie denied that he had been charged with the letting-related offences, which were reported on in 2011.

However, court services confirmed to the Local Democracy Reporting Service that he had pled guilty at a trial in 2010 and was fined.

Mr Lennie also told the reporter that he had been “done in 1985 for ghost tenants, DHS fraud”, and that he had been charged with mortgage fraud around 2000.

‘Ghost tenants’ refers to the practice of a landlord wrongfully telling benefits agencies that they have a tenant eligible for housing benefits living in their property.

The two contracts, together worth almost £8m, are for households which “will be able to independently manage in their own accommodation”, and for those who will be able to receive a visiting service to help with “housing support skills”.

They say that residents in private rented accommodation provided by the council through the contracts usually stay for an average of 18 months, but that stays can be ‘significantly’ longer or shorter.

The contracts were both signed on May 1 this year, with the decisions being published on May 30.

A spokesperson for Edinburgh Council said: “We work with a range of landlords and providers across the city to help us tackle the current housing emergency.

“We complete full due diligence checks on each provider.”