Tips to Avoid Being Scammed When Looking for House to Rental
What is Rental scam?
Rental scam is when someone claiming to be a property owner or landlord plans out to rent a property that non-existence, do not own rental or is substantially different than advertised. Fraudsters will collect an inspection fee, rental advance payment or rent before the prospective client recognizes the fraud.
Types of Rental Fraud
- Already rented house: Agents will show or advertise of already taken house pictures in an attempts to collect search fees or agency fess for a house that is already taken.
- A Fraudster listings for places that don’t exist or aren’t rentals, and tries to lure renters with low prices.
- Fake landlord or property owners are presented by middlemen to receive rental advance payments.
How Do you Avoid Rental scam?
The following steps before making any payments to avoid losing money from a rental scam
- Beware Of The Middleman Scam: The middleman scam is one of the most common schemes out there. Especially on websites like jiji and other platforms with classifieds
- Do Your Research: The best thing about the internet is that it always remembers and it always has places where people give their feedback on anyone and anything. So prior to renting a place from someone, make sure you do your homework and run basic research on the internet, google the landlord: e-mails, names, property address, etc.If there is a real estate company that represents this particular landlord, make sure you google some feedback and reviews regarding how they handle business.
- Those Who want To Make A Deal With No Background Info Are Probably fraudsters: You need to understand that not only tenants want to be safe and feel secure. That’s why landlords usually want to screen their prospects. When your potential landlord doesn’t really care about it and rushes to sign the lease without running any checks on you, this is a huge red light and you should be careful.
- Rent from Reliable real estate Companies: If you are particularly worried about fraud, or moving into an apartment sign-unseen, renting from a large, well-known property management company may be your best bet. Larger properties generally have trusted leasing agents and follow a set procedure so you can make sure you’re not being scammed.
- Never pay rent Without inspecting the property several times: Having a chance to look at the place you plan to rent several times should be the number one priority for you and once this requirement is not met, you can skip that landlord.
- Meet property owner In Person: Yes, we are the dotcom era, documents sent online, whats app, pay rent and collect rent through online or mobile payments. However once you are satisfied with property inspections, you should meet the actual landlord, the homeowner, the person who has all the rights to rent out this place to you.
- Verify the Landlord or Identify The Owner Of The Property: Before going ahead and signing tenancy agreement you should ask for the property ownership documents that prove that you’re dealing with a person who has all the rights to rent out this place. This will help you understand that this whole deal is legit. Avoid anyone who’s telling you that the documents will be sent to you later, a real homeowner doesn’t have any reasons to avoid showing you the documents. When you see the ownership documents and the name there doesn’t match with the name of the landlord, there is nothing to do here.
- Dealing In cash payment Is A Bad Start: A landlord who aims to scam you will always insist on paying cash and will simply move on to the next prospect if you refuse. They are constantly becoming a part of rental scams.
Always Sign A tenancy contract or agreement from a recognized law firm or lawyer. Avoid verbal agreements, if necessary have your or another lawyer to review the agreement before signing it. There is always a chance that you’ll have to take this case to the court and this will become a real headache for you, all these cases are really hard to resolve.
Key things to look out on the tenancy agreement
All tenancy contracts must be signed by both parties: property owner, a tenant and in the presence of two witnesses from both sides.
That you get a copy of this contract, not only the landlord.
- Talk To Current Or Previous Tenants: Speaking to the current tenants will help you confirm information provided by the landlord. One of the great ways to check whether the landlord is a reliable person is contacting current tenants or the ones who rented his property recently.Some of the landlords will be actually happy to provide you with good references and sometimes you’ll have to make a small research of your own to find this information out.
