HYPOCRISY OF SNP MP WITH £630,000 PROPERTY EMPIRE
Nationalist snaps up former council homes and makes fortune in rental income – despite opposing the sale of social housing
A NATIONALIST MP who campaigned against the sell-off of social housing has been accused of ‘shameless hypocrisy’ after buying up ex-council flats. Dr Lisa Cameron makes thousands of pounds from renting the properties to her constituents, who pay more than tenants in identical homes still in public hands.
A Scottish Daily Mail investigation has uncovered the details of her £628,000 portfolio of seven properties, which includes five ex-local authority dwellings in impoverished areas – three of which were repossessions, sold off at bargain prices after previous owners could not keep up their mortgage payments.
The homes are now rented out on the private market for up to £400 a month – around £150 more than the average council rent for the East Kilbride area she represents. Dr Cameron’s husband, who was declared bankrupt less than three years ago, is responsible for the day-to- day running of the flourishing business.
But at a General Election hustings in April, 43-year-old Dr Cameron vowed to ‘oppose the sale of housing association homes’, arguing: ‘We need to make sure we have affordable homes for people within our communities. We would end
austerity to the most vulnerable people and support them in finding homes.’
In recent years there have been up to 4,000 people on the housing waiting list in East Kilbride, and South Lanarkshire Council has struggled with a shortfall of affordable housing.
In 2013, Nicola Sturgeon scrapped the popular right-to-buy policy for council tenants in an effort to prevent the further sell-off of homes.
The First Minister, who has said it is ‘absolutely vital that people can access social housing when they need it most’, will come under intense pressure to take action against her MP.
The party is still reeling after it suspended another MP, Michelle Thomson, amid a police investigation into allegations of mortgage fraud involving property deals.
Mrs Thomson was accused of hypocrisy after it emerged the website for her property company promoted opportunities for investors to snap up former council homes.
Scottish Conservative housing spokesman Alex Johnstone said: ‘This is yet more incredible hypocrisy from an SNP MP. No doubt those who heard her views on council houses at the hustings will feel completely deceived.’
Labour MSP James Kelly said: ‘This looks like absolutely shameless hypocrisy from yet another Nationalist MP.’
The Mail can reveal that Dr Cameron bought some of the properties in the 18 months after her husband, Mark Horsham, went bust running a business which traded in her name.
Her husband was declared bankrupt in February 2013 with debts of more than £25,000, which he ran up while trading as ‘Lisa Cameron & Associates’. He now takes care of the day-today running of the property business while Dr Cameron sits in the Commons representing the former Labour stronghold of East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow.
Dr Cameron said: ‘Lots of people become bankrupt. Like many people we have had to
‘People will feel completely deceived’
struggle in terms of that issue. I have always had to pay for things and that’s the way it is.’
The MP said she has ‘always had to struggle for everything I have had in my life – I come from a very meagre background’.
One of the homes she owns is the impressive sandstone detached villa in Lanarkshire where the couple live, and another is an upmarket holiday let in Edinburgh. The other five are ex-local authority properties in run-down areas rented out to constituents of Dr Cameron.
She began building her empire back in 2003 and purchased a modest former council house in East Kilbride for £75,000, taking out a £31,000 mortgage with the Nationwide Building Society and renting it out from 2009. Her next property, an ex-local authority flat, was left to Dr Cameron by her grandmother in 2012.
Then, amid a rising tide of house repossessions, she acquired her third rental property for only £38,750 in cash – an excouncil flat whose previous owner could not keep up the mortgage payments. It is likely the price was considerably less than the former owner paid for it.
Nine months later, Dr Cameron bought another repossession for £42,000.
Her next rental flat was bought from the estate of the previous owner after his death. The three most recently purchased flats were bought in the yearand-a-half after 42-year-old Mr Horsham went bust, yet she was able to pay £230,000 in cash with no new mortgage required on the three homes.
The property empire nets an estimated £2,000 a month in rent.
Mr Horsham, a former software developer with Standard Life, used a debt mechanism known as a low income, low assets (LILA) insolvency, which was set up to protect the ‘most vulnerable’.
To qualify for the LILA scheme, which has now been axed, a debtor needed to have no single asset worth more than £1,000; assets worth no more than £10,000 in total; and a weekly income of the national minimum wage or less.
He was able to meet the criteria for the scheme even though he was living in a £243,000 villa because the property is owned in his wife’s name only.
An ex- council flat bought for the property business three months before Mr Horsham went bust could not be included in his assets because that, too, is registered in his wife’s name only.
On top of the £74,000 Westminster salary to which she is entitled, Dr Cameron receives £150 a month from her company, Psychological Services Scotland, for five hours’ work supervising the reports of an assistant forensic psychologist.
Last night, the MP insisted she had told voters she had her own business before the election. ‘But I don’t think I said I had six houses. I said I had a business,’ she said. ‘I didn’t buy the properties under right-to-buy. Other people have bought them previously, years ago, probably when I was at university. We are in a different situation now.
‘At that point there was a lot of council housing available.’ She added: ‘I treat my tenants with the utmost respect. People are happy with my flats. I charge a market rate for my properties in East Kilbride.’ Dr Cameron went on: ‘My husband looks after [the properties] now that I am in Westminster. He tidies them up. They are my properties, he looks after them.’
An SNP spokesman said: ‘Dr Cameron has declared her interests in line with the rules. The properties were not purchased from the local authority and include, for instance, a flat which Dr Cameron inherited.’
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