Trustees for homelessness charity House the Homeless have stopped referring clients to the founder's estate agency after a complaint about conflicts of interest to the Charity Commission.

The regulator received a complaint about the unregistered charity in March 2014 about the involvement of the founder, and opened an operational compliance case. 

The Commission found that House the Homeless has an income of less than £5,000 so it is not required to register. It operated from premises owned by the founder. The charity did not pay rent but service charges were shared between the company and the charity. 

The founder was named as a co-ordinator on the charity’s website but had stepped down and was a volunteer at the time.

House the Homeless had referred a beneficiary to the founder’s estate agency and been criticised by local media. The Commission was told this was a short-term arrangement and that the founder had not charged fees.

The Commission found that trustees had “little experience of running a charity”. And that: “They had not fully appreciated the conflict of interest in relation to the founder’s previous involvement with the charity.”

The charity has moved to a new office and removed the founder’s name from the website and is looking at providing support to homeless people in other ways. It will report back to the Charity Commission and provide accounts by March 2015.