The Charity Commission has launched an inquiry into a housing charity, which featured in a BBC Panorama documentary in the summer into property deals, after it emerged that more than £1m of its funds had been paid out to nine trustees.

The nine people were paid a total of £1.1m from April 2015 from My Space Housing Solutions funds and were all serving as trustees of the charity during this period, the Commission found.

The regulator says that the payments “raise concerns about conflicts of interest and an inquiry has been launched to access potential misconduct and mismanagement”.

This will focus on investigating conflicts of interest, third party transactions and whether the charity has suffered financial loss because of mismanagement or misconduct.

The regulator had opened a regulatory compliance case in July this year into the charity and inspected its books and records in late August.

The charity provides supported accommodation to vulnerable people and during the summer was the subject of a BBC Panorama investigation into property development deals involving vulnerable tenants.

In a statement following the documentary the charity defended its use of a “lease-based model” to provide “much needed housing alongside numerous other providers in the sector”.

However, it accepted “that there were some failings with how we dealt with the management” of one property.

It added: “We acknowledge that in the past we have made mistakes in our governance and we are currently looking at all of our governance procedures and reviewing and strengthening our board structure.

“We are currently actively reviewing all aspects of our compliance, alongside a respected firm of solicitors specialising in this area.

This statement added that it provides exempt accommodation to 1,500 vulnerable adults with a “broad range of complex needs including those who have addition or serious mental health issues”. Tenants are supported through a 250-strong team, it said.

“We have been in constant dialogue with the Regulator of Social Housing and have recently taken the decision to apply for deregistration on the basis that we provide exempt accommodation and not social housing,” the charity added.

According to the charities register, My Space Housing Solutions is 40 days late submitting its annual accounts. It is listed as having seven trustees.

Its most recent accounts, for the year ending 31 October 2020 show it had a total income of £26.39m, with £20.2m from charitable activities and £6m from trading activities. It spent £22.15m on charitable activities and retained £4.25m for future use.

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