The startling amount – more than seven times higher than his income as an MP – was revealed in a secret police report, the paper reported.
Scotland Yard detectives allegedly found that the former Europe minister had “in total seven or eight mortgages” between 1996 and 2001, with four loans running concurrently at one point.
In October 2008, Mr Vaz was alleged to have made mortgage payments totalling £26,500. At the time he was a back-bench MP on £45,066 a year and his wife ran a small firm of solicitors.
Parliamentary rules demand that MPs publicly declare any properties that are not used for “the personal residential purposes” of a politician or their spouse. They are also supposed to declare properties they inhabit that are generating “substantial income”.
