London hotels are threatening to evict asylum seekers after failing to receive payments from an accommodation provider ditched by the government.
Stay Belvedere Hotels (SBHL), a specialist residential service provider based in Mayfair, provided around a quarter of Home Office migrant accommodation in around 50 hotels in England and Wales.
But last month, the department announced it was ending the contract it awarded SBHL in 2019 following an audit which identified concerns about the firm's performance.
Their clients, which includes hotels in the capital, claim they have been unable to cover their insurance premiums due to unpaid bills by SBHL.
One owner of a group of migrant hotels told The Daily Telegraph: “We are saying that if there is no payment, there is no option. We will have to evict the asylum seekers.”
There are approximately 38,000 asylum seekers in hotels at a cost of £5.5 million a day to the state.
Of these, more than 13,000 — a third of the total — were based in London, the highest figure for any region of the country.
SBHL was sub-contracted by Clearsprings Ready Homes, one of three overarching providers that have decade-long contracts with the government to provide accommodation for asylum seekers waiting for claims decisions.
Clearsprings, whose properties have been repeatedly investigated for their poor quality, tripled its profits in two years to £91 million last year.
The contract for managing SBHL’s hotels is being transferred to Mears, Serco and Corporate Travel Management (CTM), the later of which was criticised for its running of the Bibby Stockholm barge in Portland, Dorset.
Government officials said that all the invoices due for payment by the Home Office had been paid.
‘If there is no payment, there is no option’
A source said: “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.”
It is now up to SBHL and Clearsprings to fulfil their contracts and pay the hotels the cash owed.
Although most of the hotels are in the capital, there are also properties in coastal towns such as Bournemouth in Dorset, Eastbourne in East Sussex and Folkestone in Kent.
Home Secretary Yvette Cooper is currently reviewing all the contracts that Labour inherited from the previous Conservative government, including that for Clearsprings.
The move comes as the number of migrants arriving on British soil via the English Channel set a new record for the first three months of the year.
Figures show that more than 6,600 people were detected in small boats over the first three months of 2025 — more than 30 per cent more than the previous record of just under 5,000 by this time last year.
