Bogus landlords stealing tenants money makes us offer a check the property service. | Discuss
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1:07 pm
20/05/2011
Offline
QuoteOn the 4th January 2016 Tenant referencing UK launches Check the Property Service to protect tenants from bogus landlords by seeing who is the registered legal owner of a property and/or who has the right to rent it out.
In these times of property shortage and as more and more people are desperate to get a home, conmen are using this crisis to prey on some tenants desperation by cheating them out of their money by portraying themselves as the landlords of rental properties.
We are constantly hearing about cases on the BBC where overseas students are targeted by fake landlords and in a very recent case in Bristol, conman Arkadiusz Sylwester Nader tricked 4 tenants out of over £1100 each by pretending he was the landlord of the flat he rented. All the tenants paid over £1100 each to secure the flat but when they went to move in the conman tenant had done a runner.
We also saw another case recently publicised in the Daily Mirror “Help catch the bogus landlord” this conman has reaped over £20,000 in theft from unsuspecting tenants who handed over the money to him.
I saw these articles and was appalled that people prey on others needs like this and anyone who knows me also knows that my pet hate is people who prey on other vulnerability. This inspired me to act to help tenants in the future and so within just a couple of weeks of the Bristol con and even though Christmas was on top of us I have started the CHECK THE PROPERTY service to help protect those looking for a new home in January.
I ask all who read this to retweet it, like it and pass it on, on social media so all their friends and family who may be tenants know there is a way to check the property before they hand over their cash to these conmen.
The Check the Property search is a land registry search and anyone can carry out a land registry search if you wish to go to the trouble of registering with the land registry however, for ease and a small added administration charge we will carry out the whole process for you. For just £25 England, Wales and £50 for Scotland you can find out who owns the property you are intending to rent and if the person is not the owner you can question what permissions and documentation the person offering you the property has to let it to you. Anyone who is letting a property to you must either own the property or have written permissions from the owner to sublet the property to you.
Quite simply, Getting a £25 Check the Property search today could save you £1000’s in losses in the future Read more here
2:38 pm
12/10/2011
OfflinePaul Routledge said
Anyone who is letting a property to you must either own the property or have written permissions from the owner to sublet the property to you.
Paul, I operate on a rent to rent basis via my company, Fawlty Flats Ltd, with a verbal contract. I have taken legal advice and this is a perfectly valid way of operating, a verbal contract being as valid as a written one albeit less easy to prove. If you checked all my properties to find the "owner" as registered at the land registry you would not find a single one registered in the name of my limited company. I have "discussions" (I am being euphemistic) on a regular basis with my local council with regard to ownership and section 6 of the Local Authority Finance Act.
Fawlty Flats Ltd issues the tenancy agreement not on behalf of the owner but as the owner, which it is by virtue of the verbal contract with a duration of more than six months. This has repercussions in court hearings where Fawlty Flats presents the case rather than the registered owner.
I suppose that I am the exception that proves the rule!
7:07 pm
20/05/2011
Offline
David,
I too have lease backs from my own name to the limited company name and therefore the company will not show up as the registered owner. However I can and would answer the questions to an in going tenant to prove I had the right to rent them and I think it is our duty to be able to explain to tenants the structure and to also be able to prove to tenants that we have the right to rent to them.
I, and I am sure you would not mind to regularise your agreements especially if it means others get protected from getting ripped off in the future. I understand that it may be a bit more work for us but in the grand scheme of things and in the way the PRS is changing it may not be a bad thing if it were made law that we need to prove to the tenants our Right 2 Rent.
11:04 pm
12/10/2011
Offline
Would there be a way of LRS checking on the LL and then providing an ID card to the LL
This would have a registration number
Any tenant applicant could then contact LRS to verify the LL for a particular property
LRS would then have a database of verified LL
Most LL could provide details of their properties owned
This would give confidence to tenants that an LRS verified LL is a LL and has the right to rent to the tenant applicant the property concerned
For LA who act on behalf of LL they would need to ensure the LL was verified as a LRS LL
As you indicate it is not easy for a tenant to verify that the purported LL is a a LL and if they are that they have the right to rent the particular property to a tenant
So a bit like the credit card verified by visa etc it could be LL verified by LRS!!!?
Personally I have never been asked by any tenant whether I have the right to rent out any of my properties
Of course it is something that all good LL should be prepared to assist
If I was a tenant I would wish to verify the LL etc
Wales effectively will have such a verification system with the Rent Smart requirement
England and Scotland don't have any verification service that a tenant can rely on as far as I am aware
I imagine for you offer a LL ID card you would need various documents from a LL
Becoming a LRS verified LL would surely give confidence to tenant applicants!
2:16 pm
29/06/2012
OfflineThis seems rather expensive compared to the £3 land registry check if all it does is check that the landlords name is on the land registry.
If it was expanded to do a credit check on the landlord, confirm the landlord’s current address, confirm that the bank account number/sort code the tenant is asked to pay the deposit into belongs to the landlord and check the landlords ID then it could be of great benefit.
5:44 pm
20/05/2011
Offline
Ringi,
If you want a service then you pay for it and many cannot be bothered to register and carry the search out themselves and therefore as I said in the article anyone can carry out the check themselves for less however if they want us to do it for them we have to charge for our time and then pay the government 20% vat for the pleasure.
I feel it is a bit mean to imply we are making a fortune and should do all the referencing included in the price as by the time someone has carried the report out emailed it over to the tenant explained how to read it and answered all the tenants questions and after I have paid for staff time, the land registry search, the lighting heating and office space, I would be lucky to break even.
I have not done this to retire on the profits, I have done it to help tenants who cannot or do not want to do it and to stop them losing their money to rogues.
Paul B,
Experience tells me that tenants would not want to pay for it and landlords would not agree to having it done.
5:55 pm
29/06/2012
OfflinePaul,
What if you charged £50.....
Could it then even include insurance cover if a "landlord" runs of with the tenants deposit and first months rent? I am thinking that to do it right, you should send a letter to the owners address as recorded on the land reg, then require the owner to phone you up with the code word that is in the letter, so as to "close the loop" - but that will delay the process a bit.
Then see if someone like Shelter will be happy to co-brand it.
If it was setup to do enough checks, I would be happy to give everyone that viewed one of my properties a flyer about it, assuming the flyer explains the risks of "fake" landlords etc well along with offering the checking service.
3:28 pm
20/05/2011
Offline
Hi Ringi,
Sorry for the late reply but my feet have not touched the ground over the last week with the launch of the new letting service. The problem is that tenants will not pay for any service that they think they do not need and most do not need to check on a future landlord. landlords will not want to be referenced by tenants when there is a shortage of properties that tenants are queuing for
Shelter will only work with third parties who sponsor them and to do that you need to give them £24k a year. Tried that one before!
I just added this if tenants want to see who owns the property and if it is not the person who is letting it then they can ask questions as to who does, this in itself might put the conmen on the back foot.
5:11 pm
Paul Routledge said
On the 4th January 2016 Tenant referencing UK launches Check the Property Service to protect tenants from bogus landlords by seeing who is the registered legal owner of a property and/or who has the right to rent it out.In these times of property shortage and as more and more people are desperate to get a home, conmen are using this crisis to prey on some tenants desperation by cheating them out of their money by portraying themselves as the landlords of rental properties.
We are constantly hearing about cases on the BBC where overseas students are targeted by fake landlords and in a very recent case in Bristol, conman Arkadiusz Sylwester Nader tricked 4 tenants out of over £1100 each by pretending he was the landlord of the flat he rented. All the tenants paid over £1100 each to secure the flat but when they went to move in the conman tenant had done a runner.
We also saw another case recently publicised in the Daily Mirror “Help catch the bogus landlord” this conman has reaped over £20,000 in theft from unsuspecting tenants who handed over the money to him.
I saw these articles and was appalled that people prey on others needs like this and anyone who knows me also knows that my pet hate is people who prey on other vulnerability. This inspired me to act to help tenants in the future and so within just a couple of weeks of the Bristol con and even though Christmas was on top of us I have started the CHECK THE PROPERTY service to help protect those looking for a new home in January.
I ask all who read this to retweet it, like it and pass it on, on social media so all their friends and family who may be tenants know there is a way to check the property before they hand over their cash to these conmen.
The Check the Property search is a land registry search and anyone can carry out a land registry search if you wish to go to the trouble of registering with the land registry however, for ease and a small added administration charge we will carry out the whole process for you. For just £25 England, Wales and £50 for Scotland you can find out who owns the property you are intending to rent and if the person is not the owner you can question what permissions and documentation the person offering you the property has to let it to you. Anyone who is letting a property to you must either own the property or have written permissions from the owner to sublet the property to you.
Quite simply, Getting a £25 Check the Property search today could save you £1000’s in losses in the future Read more here
You don't like people being ripped off. But you're charging £25 or £50 for a service that doesn't actually provide any more info than checking the Land Registry themselves would have done?! £22 is not a "small added administration charge"! I can't see how the "trouble of registering with the land registry" would be any more troublesome than registering with your service. I will be contacting Shelter and advising them strongly against "co-branding" anything like this with you.
11:22 am
20/05/2011
Offline
Caroline,
As I said above and was very clear, you can get it direct from the land registry cheaper. What we charge is what we need to charge and what we need to cover overheads and staff time.
If you don't like it then don't use it, if you want it cheaper go get it cheaper, and if you want to report us to shelter I would love to hear from them because they are the ones that asked us for £24k to endorse us.
It is very simple, if you are shopping and want a cheaper product/service you can shop at Aldi, if you want it even cheaper than that then grow your own, but please don’t come to the Waitrose of referencing companies and the only company that has bothered to try and help tenants and slag off their margins.
Maybe you should point us to the link where you or your champion shelter have built the website and staffed it to carry out these checks for less? I wait with baited breath for that link.
10:35 pm
02/05/2013
OfflineWell Caroline has obviously never run a business because if she had she would realise what rubbish she is spouting.
3:21 am
12/10/2011
Offline
I have NEVER been asked to validate that I am the owner of the properties I let out!!!
This is probably a London problem!?
Can LL have access to their own LR details and if so then print off the latest register record which will presumably be date stamped on the bottom of the page
This should suffice to validate the LL
f I was a tenant I would NOT hand over any monies until I had such verification
If I did this I reckon I would miss out on a few tenancies!!!!??
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