UK asylum housing: contractor offers landlords double what councils pay

Clearsprings Ready Homes, a contractor for the Home Office, offers British landlords up to £4,500 a month for properties that councils rent at £1,790, with bills, council tax and maintenance covered. The gap exceeds £32,000 a year per property and puts pressure on local authorities rehousing vulnerable families.

There is a scene that keeps repeating itself in south London and sums up the tangle rather well. A landlord rents a three-bedroom flat to **Southwark** Council for **£1,790** a month. He gets a call from **Clearsprings Ready Homes**: they offer him **£4,500** for the same property. The difference is **£32,520** a year, and on top of that the electricity bill, the council tax and maintenance are covered for three years. The man, who prefers not to give his name, told the **Daily Mail** that he turned the offer down because he would have had to terminate his contract with the council and leave the rehoused families at risk of ending up on the street. "I'm not willing to do that," he said. "But a lot of landlords simply see it as an opportunity to make more money and accept."

That is the mechanism, laid bare. No theory needed. A contractor with a multi-billion-pound public contract offers more than the council for the same housing stock. The rational landlord accepts. The tenant occupying the flat, if it is a British family on the waiting list, ends up on the street or on another list.

## Who is behind the offers and how much they make

Clearsprings Ready Homes is one of three companies managing accommodation for asylum seekers for the **Home Office**, alongside **Serco** and **Mears**. The contracts were awarded under the Conservative government and run until **2029**. The company is run by **Graham King**, with an estimated fortune of **£726 million**, and houses around **30,000 asylum seekers**.

The accounts for the last financial year, closed in January **2025**, show revenue of **£1.4 billion** and a profit of **£62.6 million**. The **National Audit Office** had estimated that the Home Office's planned spending on the main asylum contracts would reach **£1.67 billion** for the 2024-25 period.

The pattern described by the Mail is that Clearsprings does not build new accommodation or buy cheap land: it goes after properties already occupied by council tenants, students and vulnerable people, including those fleeing domestic violence. In other words, it competes for the existing stock rather than expanding it.

## The council cannot match that premium

Here is the technical key that explains why the council cannot match the offer. Councils have legal caps on what they can pay a private landlord to house a family. Those limits exist so that public money does not inflate the local rental market. The Home Office contractor, by contrast, operates under a framework contract with a contractual maximum rate, according to the department's version.

A Home Office spokesperson argued that the ministry pays a maximum rate and that "any amount above that is covered by the contractor and not the taxpayer." It is an interesting accounting distinction: the extra cost comes out of the contractor's margin, not the public bill. But the effect on the ground is the same, because the contractor still has incentives to pay above the council and displace the use of that housing.

The landlord himself put it bluntly: "The council has a cap on what it can pay landlords like me." That cap is the reason Clearsprings' offer looks unbeatable.

## Families on waiting lists, students and domestic violence victims

The outcome is not abstract. British families on the council housing waiting list, students renting rooms and people leaving a situation of domestic violence are competing against a publicly funded premium. They are not competing on equal terms: one side has a three-year contract with expenses covered, the other has a waiting list.

In the political debate, the Labour Party's Home Affairs spokesman, **Chris Philp**, called the situation "a day of shame for the Labour Party" and argued that it is "madness" to give priority to people who have entered irregularly over citizens who work and pay taxes. He added that more than **85,000** people have crossed the Channel under the Labour government and that only **7%** of those who arrive are deported, with more than **93,000** people in asylum accommodation.

Home Office officials respond with another figure: the closure of hotels and savings of more than **£1 billion** in asylum support since the election, plus **80,000** deportations prevented. The argument over which figure counts is itself part of the problem: each side picks the numerator that suits it.

## The pressure neither starts nor ends with a contract

The broader context does nothing to calm things down. Border security commander **Duncan Capps** warned MPs that nearly **3,800 migrants** are building up in camps between **Calais** and **Dunkerque**, almost double the usual figure of around **2,000**. He noted that the larger size of the boats and their occupancy miccionan that "it is only a matter of time before there is a mass drowning in the Channel."

This year's crossings are lower than last year's, but the build-up in northern France indicates that demand remains high: French interceptions do not lead to detention, so the same people can try again. Since the Labour Party came to power in July **2024**, more than **83,000** people have crossed in small boats. The total since records began in **2018** now exceeds the combined strength of the Army, the Navy and the Royal Air Force, according to the comparison used by the Mail.

On the housing market, the government said early in the year that all parts of the country should plan for an influx of migrants, given that hotels are closing and people are being housed in properties. There are projections that put migrants at **40%** of new housing in the UK by **2030** if the trend continues. Local residents have protested when care homes or former military sites are converted for that purpose.

None of this is new. What Clearsprings' offers add is estimulante ilegal: the same displacement as always, but with higher guaranteed rents paid through the contractor. The contracts were signed before; the decision to keep the system running at this scale is a present-day one. Without a sustained reduction in arrivals and a higher removal rate, the pressure on housing and the cost have few automatic brakes. And if you are a landlord and get a call offering you double, you know what is going to happen. This is economic and political information, not legal or investment advice: for your specific case, consult a professional.