‘Arrogance’ of landlord in £180k scam
DESPITE EARNING £500K FROM PROPERTIES WOMAN FALSELY CLAIMED DISABILITY BENEFIT
A BUY-TO-LET landlord scammed £180,000 in benefits while making a fortune from properties in Manchester and other cities.
Maria Protheroe, 56, swindled the taxpayer by claiming income support, despite earning £500,000 as a landlord renting out properties across the country.
She also lied to obtain mortgages to buy more houses and then claimed to live in two of them to avoid Capital Gains Tax when she sold them, a court heard.
Between 2003 and 2016 Protheroe dishonestly claimed £178,368 in a string of benefits as well as dodging £33,000 in tax payments.
During the same period she had a portfolio of ten properties including houses in Manchester, Bradford, Coventry, Plymouth, and Scotland, which provided ‘a little over half a million pounds’ in income.
Protheroe, of Coventry, admitted two charges of fraud, failing to notify the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) of a change in circumstances and cheating the Public Revenue at a court hearing. The court heard she begun claiming invalidity benefit and then incapacity benefit, and later employment and support allowance, on the basis that she was too ill to work.
Ben Close, prosecuting, said: “During that period she has amassed a property portfolio and rented out those properties. She did not declare she was receiving rental income from the properties.”
In 2010 she also claimed carer’s allowance in respect of her sister, giving an address in Winchester and claiming to have no employment and no land or property which was rented out.
When Protheroe sold properties in Coventry in 2003 and 2005, she claimed each was her principal private residence to avoid paying £11,730 in Capital Gains Tax.
Then, in 2008, Protheroe remortgaged a house in Plymouth, using false claims, including that she was a selfemployed bookkeeper earning £47,000 a year.
She made similar false claims when she obtained a joint mortgage on a property in Manchester, in 2010. When her offences came to light and she was arrested in November 2016, police found £34,510 in cash at her home. Defending Protheroe, Alex Pritchard-Jones said her crimes ‘were not the most sophisticated.’ Protheroe has now been jailed for two years.
She has also been given until October to pay back £178,368 or spend another two years in prison.
In a hearing at Warwick Crown Court Judge Anthony Potter told her: “You had a benefit of just over £200,000 through offences which demonstrate enormous arrogance on your part. You believed that rules that applied to other people did not apply to you.” Protheroe was also ordered to pay £25,000 court costs.
You believed rules that applied to other people did not apply to you Judge Anthony Potter