Criminal deeds in house belonging to priests repeatedly exposed (10)

I believe the answer is:

villainies

I'm a little stuck... Click here to teach me more about this clue!

'house belonging to priests repeatedly exposed' is the definition.
I can't judge whether this defines the answer.

'criminal deeds' is the wordplay.
'criminal' becomes 'villain' (both can mean a bad person).
'deeds' becomes 'ies' (I can't justify this - if you can you should give a lot more credence to this answer).
'villain'+'ies'='VILLAINIES'

'in' acts as a link.

Can you help me to learn more?

I've seen this clue in The Independent.

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