my space in any way. so far, i have discovered there have been serious problems for some babe to putting tenants. problems for some desperate my space tenants. i want to know how many my space properties used to be owned by paul 0?rourke and how much money he has made. here s one in east yorkshire. in 2019, this block was bought for £800,000. it was leased to my space and then sold for almost 1.6 million, all on the same day. paul o rourke says, after expenses, the deal made him just shy of £400,000. the individual you are describing is worked out how this system can be exploited.
it was destroyed, absolutely destroyed. i ve never seen anything like it. we ask, is public money being exploited for private gain? it s a really wild west system i and the winners are the people creaming off quite often very large profits. - boat s like this don t come cheap. most people would never have the opportunity to own a boat like this. it would cost you more than a couple of hundred grand, and you can see why. one just like this was bought by a property developer called paul o rourke. here he is explaining his business model. we are a private limited company that buys properties for one price, develops them and sells them for another
they show there is a link between paul o rourke and my space, and that s why we failed in front of thejudge because we couldn t establish the link. i think, if we got this documentation, we would established that link. o rourke has now paid my space hundreds of thousands of pounds in backdated benefits. i m not best pleased. and who is paying the price? the public are paying the price and footing the bill. that is our annual check to the christmas markets. he used to always enjoy that, mainly for the food. lindsay bessell s 21 year old son, nick, has been a tenant with my space for four years.
it is a registered provider of social housing. this is the village of north wingfield in derbyshire. in 2018, paul o rourke bought arcam house here. my space took a 20 year lease on the property and used it to house and support vulnerable people. it s a really community based village. is that it there? yeah. charlie hamilton kay works with people affected by anti social behaviour. by the middle of 2019, just weeks after tenants moved into arcam house she was already dealing with problems. the behaviour was constant. drunkenness, loud music, suspected drug use. early hours of the morning, late hours of night, constant reports of calls to the police. it was really terrifying.
and that s what we do as a business. there is a bit more to it than that. and it s all about the housing benefit that can be claimed to house vulnerable people who need support. the government calls it exempt accommodation. exempt accommodation is a particular type of supported housing which is exempt from having benefit regulations, which means you can charge a higher rent. while there are good providers of this type of housing, there is mounting evidence this taxpayer funded system is open to exploitation. it s a really wild west system and the winners are the people creaming off quite often very large profits. you and i are paying for this situation every day that we pay tax. paul o rourke works closely with a charity called my space housing solutions.