A BENEFITS cheat who falsely claimed more than £31,000 in income support could lose her home as a result of a court ruling.

Mother-of-three Karen Brown admitted making a false benefit claim - by failing to declare that her circumstances had changed as a result of her boyfriend moving in with her.

Yesterday at Teesside Crown Court, Recorder Ian Thorp said that Brown, of Stockton, had benefited by £31,489 from the fraud.

It was decided that £23,713 could be realised from her assets, which included £20,000 against her home in St Crispin's Court, Stockton, and savings in three Nationwide bank accounts.

Andrew Finlay, prosecuting, revealed that Brown also had a timeshare in Cyprus, although there was to be no further investigation into the value of this and it did not form part of her realisable assets.

Brown, 41, who was paid the benefit between April 2000 and November 2004, was told by the judge that she could be jailed for 18 months if she did not pay the agreed sum back.

Her barrister, Stephen Constantine, asked for the case to be adjourned so a pre-sentence report could be prepared.

Recorder Thorp warned Brown that any sentence she received as a result of defaulting on her repayments would be on top of that for the fraud itself.

The case was adjourned until April 10 when Brown is due to be sentenced and by which time she is expected to have paid the money back.