Hotels predominantly in London are threatening to evict hundreds of asylum seekers after failing to receive contracted payments from an accommodation company ditched by the Home Office.
The hotels, largely in the London area, say that they should have received payments from Stay Belvedere Hotels (SBHL) for housing the asylum seekers last month.
They claim that means they have been unable to pay their insurance premiums, leaving them in breach of their contracts and potentially without cover.
“We are saying that if there is no payment, there is no option. We will have to evict the asylum seekers,” the owner of a group of hotels housing hundreds of migrants said.
SBHL, understood to be running more than 50 migrant hotels, was stripped of its contract by the Home Office last month over its alleged behaviour and poor performance.
currently, there are still around 38,000 asylum seekers in hotels at a cost of £5.5 million a day to the Home Office.
SBHL was sub-contracted by Clearsprings Ready Homes, one of three overarching providers that have 10-year contracts with the Home Office to provide accommodation for asylum seekers waiting for claims decisions. Clearsprings tripled its profits in two years to £91 million last year.
The contract to manage SBHL’s hotels is being transferred to Mears, Serco and CTM. Although most of the hotels are in the capital, there are also properties in Bournemouth, Eastbourne and Folkestone.
Government sources said that all the invoices due for payment by the Home Office had been paid, and it was up to SBHL and Clearsprings to fulfil their contracts and pay the money owed.
“We are progressing with the transition away from SBHL and Clearsprings. They are co-operating but if they breach their terms at any time and stop co-operating, we will act accordingly,” a source said.
Ministers have blamed the previous Conservative administration for badly-drawn contracts that left the taxpayer exposed.
