Villiers claims £16,000 for house buying fees
4:24pm Monday 11th May 2009
CHIPPING Barnet MP Theresa Villiers last year claimed £16,000 for charges she incurred when buying her “second home” in Kennington.
Mrs Villiers, 41, claimed £10,350 for stamp duty, £1,745.33 for a service charge and £1,499 for “product reservation fees”, which are charged to reserve a mortgage interest rate that is available for only a limited time.
The expenses were for her £345,000 Kennington address, which she bought in January last year.
The shadow transport secretary, who earns £64,766 a year, also has a £295,000 semi-detached house in her Chipping Barnet constituency, which is around 14 miles, or an hour’s commute, from Westminster.
David Cameron yesterday ordered all Tory MPs who had made extravagant claims to pay back the money, but Mrs Villiers was spared from his hit-list. She said: "I set up a second home close to Westminster to help me do as effective a job as I can for my constituents.
"My claims reflect the cost of setting up and running that second home.
"But I welcome the action David Cameron has taken to ensure all expenses claimed by Conservative MPs are open to scrutiny by the public.
"He is taking the sort of action that is needed in order to help restore the public's confidence in our democratic system."
Mrs Villiers said she would join her shadow cabinet colleagues in publishing all expense claims online and stop taking the allowance in six months, to give her "time to make the necessary changes" to her personal arrangements.
Last year was Mrs Villiers' first second home allowance claim. Before then she chose to claim the smaller London supplement offered to MPs representing constituencies in the capital.
For the first two years after she was elected in 2005, she claimed the maximum £2,360 and £2,712 supplement offered to MPs in inner London. She then switched to the second home allowance scheme, claiming £18,181 in total.
This included £449.99 for her estate agent’s search fees, £220 for her land registry fee and various other fees totalling £1,658. Since then she has claimed the £1,062 monthly interest charge on her £285,000 mortgage and other household bills.
In May last year, she also claimed for a £164.50 plumbers’ bill she was handed for a kitchen leak.
During the same year, Labour MP for Hendon, Andrew Dismore, claimed £3,815 in second home expenses to keep a flat in Pavilion Way, Edgware, alongside his Westminster home. He has now switched to the lower London supplement.
Finchley and Golders Green MP Rudi Vis claimed £17,221 in 2006 to 2007 and his full additional cost allowance (ACA) of £23,083 last year for a second home in Finchley, while his family relocated to Suffolk.
MPs from outer-London boroughs are allowed to claim a ACA of up to £23,083 to cover the cost of staying away from their “main” home – the one where they spend most nights of the week.
Villiers claims £16,000 for house buying fees
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