MP couple’s home ‘is not empty’
By Alice Cannet
Two married Labour MPs have denied leaving their main home empty after they were given a month by their local council before it repossessed it.
Ann and Alan Keen received a letter from Hounslow council who urged the couple to take action to explain why their Brentford home was empty.
The MPs claimed £137,679 over four years for their second home, a Thameside flat in Waterloo; a sum which drew public attention in recent weeks.
A source from the Tory council told the BBC that their house in Brentford had been empty for seven months.
The council has the power to issue an emergency dwelling management order to repossess the house and give it a new use, if nothing is heard from the Keens.
But Mrs Keen denied leaving the home empty and said in a statement: “It is categorically untrue to say that our home is an empty dwelling as made clear by the relevant legislation.
“It is currently in the process of being substantially renovated, entirely at our own expense.”
The Brentford house was not subject of an empty dwelling management order, she said, and the council letter clarified that “owners undertaking renovation work on their homes are not under threat of repossession”.
“Our representatives are in the process of speaking to the London Borough of Hounslow with the details of our renovation work.
“As soon as this work is completed, we will be back living at home in Brentford, where we have lived for the past 22 years,” Mrs Keen said.
Their constituency house was reported to have fallen into disrepair over the last year after a dispute between the MPs and builders.
Lib Dem councilor for the area, Andrew Dakers, told the BBC that the house’s windows were boarded up and that the upstairs window was splashed with paint.
The Keens bought the central London flat in 2002 and have claimed over £30,000 between them in the past four years, according to the Daily Telegraph.
The couple who have been dubbed ‘Mr and Mrs Expenses’ by the media told the newspaper that married MPs were entitled to separate claims for a shared property, under the second home allowance rules.
