How to avoid renting an apartment from scammers

Where can I find long-term rental housing on my own?

Finding an apartment to rent on your own is a difficult task, but doable. Most tenants prefer to work with realtors, so it is now quite difficult for tenants to find an apartment from the owner without paying a commission to the agency.

Nevertheless, it is possible to find living space without an intermediary. How to find out who is renting an apartment, where to look for offers?

1. On ad sites on the Internet. Most offers are published from agencies, but you can also find advertisements from owners. Some of the popular Internet platforms are the Avito website and the Yula mobile application.
2. Through friends, colleagues and relatives. When looking for housing for rent, you should first inform your social circle about your desire to rent an apartment. Surely, someone you know rents out housing themselves or has information about the possibility of renting a property without intermediaries.
3. Through social networks. This is a great opportunity to quickly find housing. It is enough to post an entry on your page about searching for housing or publish an ad in thematic communities in your region.
4. Newspapers. The option is a little outdated, however, many owners still prefer to submit advertisements in print publications.

How to bypass intermediate links?

If the search does not give a positive result, then you can use a trick: find housing through an agency, but conclude the deal without his participation, without paying a commission. How to bypass the intermediary when renting an apartment:

1. When showing an apartment, you need to gain confidence in the owner: show goodwill, ask questions, listen carefully to him.
2. As soon as the realtor is distracted, you need to establish contact with the owner by discreetly handing him a piece of paper with your contact information. You can write on a piece of paper in advance: “I really liked your apartment. I guarantee timely payment and order.”
3. After the showing, tell the realtor that you are not happy with this option.
4. If the owner has not been able to find tenants for a long time or he urgently needs tenants, then he will contact the phone number indicated on the piece of paper.

How to recognize deception and protect yourself

The main signs of fraudulent schemes are favorable rental conditions. This is the main trick and scammers do everything to attract the attention of the victim. So you shouldn’t be tempted by the profitability of the deal, but it’s better to check everything yourself carefully and, if suspicions arise, refuse to cooperate.

So, the main ways to avoid getting caught by scammers when renting an apartment are the following methods:

1. Drawing up a competent agreement. The contract is a guarantee for both the tenant and the landlord. To avoid problems in the future, all conditions must be included in it. It is best to draw up such an agreement under the supervision of an experienced lawyer. It will be a little expensive, but the parties will be confident in the future.
2. Refusal of prepayment. Conscientious landlords usually require advance payment of no more than two months. Some insist on bail. You should not agree to such conditions, as this is a clear sign of deception.
3. Checking registered persons. You need to familiarize yourself with the list of persons with registration in the relevant home. If there are many of them, then it is better to refuse to rent, since at any moment one of them may demand his right to live in this home.
4. Preservation of original documents. Under no circumstances should you give anyone the title deed to real estate. The requirement for such documents is the main sign that a fraudster is standing in front of you.

Thus, attentiveness and caution are the main assistants in this matter. So don't neglect them. It is better to control everything yourself than to later deal with the consequences of property negligence.

What do we pay attention to in order to avoid deception?

If renting an apartment is inevitable, to avoid being deceived, you need to follow several rules:

1. Don't take low rental prices seriously. Probably, behind the low cost is either a fraudster or an unscrupulous owner.
2. Before concluding a transaction, you need to make sure that the person posing as the owner really is the owner.
3. The security of the transaction is guaranteed only by well-executed accompanying documents that spell out the duties, rights and responsibilities of the parties. If the owner insists on a verbal agreement, then this option should raise doubts.

What pitfalls need to be checked?

To avoid deception, before signing the papers, you should check the documents for the living space and the owner, that is, all the pitfalls that may affect your future residence:

• Who rents out the apartment? If this is the owner, then he must have papers in his hands proving this. If during the showing it turns out that this is not the owner, but his friend or relative, then he must have a power of attorney from the owner of the property.
• Legal documents. The owner or his representative must have documents for the living space. Moreover, you need to demand not copies, but originals.
• Owner's passport. It is important to make sure that the data in the passport and in the title documents match.
• Spouse's consent. If the owner is married, then most likely the apartment is in shared ownership. This means that without the consent of the other owner, the rental transaction will be considered invalid (clause 1, article 246 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation). The owner must provide written consent to rent out the apartment to his spouse.
• Home Book. This document provides information about the persons registered in the apartment. If persons other than the owner are registered in the living space, then it should be agreed in advance that they cannot claim to live in the apartment during the validity of the lease agreement.
• Neighbours. A conversation with the owners living nearby will not be superfluous. It will help you find out what kind of people live here, whether there are problems with engineering systems, and how often residents move out of the rental apartment.

Scams when renting an apartment: be careful!

Many people come to a point in their lives when they have to rent an apartment. The reasons are very different for everyone: someone wants to escape from parental care, someone does not have enough space in one apartment for the whole large family, someone wants to start their own family, someone moves to another city and cannot afford allow you to purchase permanent housing there. And we can continue endlessly...

Currently, it is quite difficult to find an apartment that matches our needs in price and furnishings. Don’t rush to rejoice if you find an advertisement for the apartment of your dreams for rent. Here, as in any business related to money, there are scammers who will not miss an opportunity to earn money from you. I want to tell you about the most common methods of fraud with apartments.

Method one: telephone scam

Let me tell you the real story of telephone fraud. One guy and his girlfriend decided to rent an apartment. He searched and searched for an apartment using advertisements in the newspaper and finally found a more than suitable option. The price is low, the apartment is in the city center, for a long term, without intermediaries, in general, it seemed like luck.

He was about to meet with the owner of the apartment, and the owner let him tell his heartbreaking story. Like, he’s sitting in prison for a crime he didn’t commit, before his neighbor rented out the apartment for him, and only gave him money, but now the neighbor is moving and he needs to somehow get by on his own. They agreed that the boy would come to this guy in prison and buy expensive vodka as a bribe for not being allowed in on the appointed day of the visit.

The uncle said that he would provide all the documents for the apartment, and took the passport details from the boy so that they could issue him a pass to the prison. The guy arrived at the appointed time, called his uncle, and he said that he would have to postpone the meeting a little. After some time, he says that the jailer demanded to buy several cards from different operators, and several packages of dry yeast, the guy bought all this and dictated codes to activate the cards. As expected, after this the meeting was postponed to tomorrow, and the next day the uncle did not answer calls.

The boy decided to intimidate the guy and sent him an SMS saying that if you don’t return the money, I’ll go to the police. The guy immediately called back, it was clear that he was on the street, and not in any prison, and promised to show up at the boy’s place of registration before he had time to utter a word. Naturally, the boy didn’t go to any police station, because he’s not as scared for himself as for his relatives who live in the same apartment with him.

MirSovetov would like to note that no matter how obvious the scam may seem, when attractive conditions for renting an apartment are offered, we can often fall for such a trick. And the consequences turn out to be quite sad.

Method two: real estate agency for one day

The scheme of this apartment scam looks like this.

A person comes to a real estate agency regarding an apartment he is interested in. The realtor calls the owner of the apartment and makes an appointment for the next day; the owner simply cannot meet before. The realtor asks to leave his share of the apartment as collateral, which is usually 50% of the rental price for one month; the person leaves it after receiving documents confirming his payment of the amount, guaranteeing the return of the amount paid in case of refusal of the apartment.

The next day, of course, no one answers the phone, and the office is either empty or a completely different company is located there. This type of scam rarely works because it may not pay off unless the scammers generally have people who can give them an office for a day at a low cost. But nevertheless, this method cannot be excluded.

Method three: Who will pay first?

And although this method of apartment fraud is known to many, MirSovetov will mention it again. Despite the popularity of this method in life, many encountering this fraud for the first time do not even suspect that they may remain deceived.

To carry out this method of fraud, a person rents an apartment for daily rent, inspects it, then places an advertisement that he is renting out the apartment. The scammer may pose as either a realtor or an apartment owner. He makes an appointment on the same day with as many people as possible, with a small interval between people, or even at the same time. By that day he was renting an apartment again. People come to look at this apartment, and everyone is told approximately the same text, something like: “People who looked at the apartment before/after you also want to rent it, but I liked you better, so if you pay the money now, you can move in.” to the apartment tomorrow."

People pay money, receive a rental agreement, and often the keys to the apartment, if the scammer has enough money that he received from one deceived person. What happens next is already clear to everyone.

How to protect yourself from scammers

Never give money for a “pig in a poke”, do not buy any cards, do not transfer money anywhere or to anyone.

Remember that no one will set a low price for a good apartment - this should immediately alert you.

Never give your passport information to strangers, as they may start threatening you and extorting money from you in the future.

If you hear the slightest inconsistency in the story of the apartment owner or realtor, if there is even the slightest suspicion of fraud, immediately refuse the apartment offered to you.

If the owner of the apartment promised to rent the apartment to you, but his phone is constantly busy, it means that he is making an agreement with someone else. To check, MirSovetov advises asking friends to call his number and try to rent an apartment. If he starts offering an apartment to your friends without telling you that he already has buyers, this is a clear sign of fraud.

Telephone scammers almost never answer the phone if they receive calls from city numbers; they avoid realtors and are afraid of the police.

If your meeting is constantly postponed, then this should alert you.

It is better to rent an apartment through real estate agencies, and verified ones through which your friends, acquaintances, and relatives rented apartments, so that you know for sure that you will not be deceived. You will pay the realtor once, but then you will live in peace for a long time.

Decor

When renting an apartment, it is important to draw up documents correctly. They will become the protection for the employer in case of conflict situations. How to properly complete a transaction and what papers should be prepared?

Agreement

This document specifies all the conditions for living and providing housing for rent: the rights and obligations of the parties to the transaction, the payment schedule, the amount of the monthly payment, liability for damage to property, conditions for terminating the contract, etc.

A standard rental agreement can be found on the Internet, adding other clauses and conditions at your discretion. When drawing up a document, it is important to take into account all the nuances and little things: from responsibility for paying for housing and communal services to the frequency of the owner’s visit to the apartment.

REFERENCE! The rental agreement is usually concluded for a period of 11 months with subsequent extension. When concluding an agreement for a period of more than 1 year, the transaction is subject to registration in Rosreestr.

Inventory of property

In order for the owner to keep the items in the apartment in order, and for the tenant to protect himself from unfounded claims by the owner regarding the use of things, an inventory of the property is drawn up.

It lists furniture, equipment and other valuables with a description of their condition and characteristics. The document is drawn up in the presence of the employer so that he can verify that the information in it is valid.

Transfer and Acceptance Certificate

This is an annex to the rental agreement, which confirms the fact of transfer of housing from the owner to the tenant for temporary use. The document contains a list and brief description of the property, details of the parties to the transaction, the date of transfer and the responsibility of the tenant in the event of damage to the property located in the apartment.

Receipt for receipt of money

It is recommended that the fact of transfer of rent to the owner of the property be recorded on paper. To do this, you need to draw up a receipt for receiving the money. As a rule, it is written when transferring a deposit for housing.

However, for complete security, it should be drawn up before each payment for accommodation. The document confirms that the indicated amount was transferred to the owner and that he received it.

Risks when searching for housing on your own

Finding an apartment without intermediaries involves many risks. What problems might a self-tenant tenant encounter?

• Fraudsters. If an experienced realtor can immediately see through a deceiver, then it can be quite difficult for an employer to determine the bad intentions of a fraudster posing as the owner. Fraud schemes in the housing rental industry are very diverse and sophisticated - from renting out an apartment to several tenants at once to changing the locks on the doors after the owner receives money.
• Lack of clear terms in the contract. When drawing up a document, it is recommended to write down all the details of the agreement. If the agreement is provided by the owner himself, then before signing, you should read it carefully or show it to a lawyer you know.
• Payment for several months in advance. As a rule, most owners require payment a maximum of 1-2 months in advance. If the owner insists on paying rent 6-12 months in advance, then you should think about the impurity of his intentions.
• Fake documents. If the owner provides only copies of papers, then the deal is not worth concluding. The owner is required to show the original documents, as copies can be easily forged.
• Rent debts. Before renting a home, it is important to make sure that it does not have housing and communal services debts. To do this, you should check the paid receipts.

Searching for housing on your own is fraught with risks. However, if you know the basic points and rules, you can avoid unforeseen situations and reduce the likelihood of fraud from unscrupulous tenants.

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How to avoid renting an apartment from scammers

It seems that renting an apartment is very simple. I scoured the ads, looked through the options, made my decision, paid - live and be happy. But no: here and there, tenants are waylaid by insidious scammers who seek to leave an honest person without housing and his last pants. The prevalence of such scams is also explained by the fact that anyone can act as a fraudster - a landlord, a tenant, or a third party who appeared out of nowhere and went nowhere. Let's figure out what the favorite tricks of scammers are and how not to fall for their bait.

Illustration: Evgeniya Remizova

Triple castling

One of the most common schemes to deceive honest tenants is related to the re-letting of an apartment. It's simple: the fraudster rents an apartment for a few days, and then he rents out the living space to other tenants for a long period of time, receiving a decent amount of money, and disappears, sometimes taking with him something valuable from his property. The smartest ones manage to re-let the apartment to several new tenants at once. As a result, both tenants and tenants are deceived.

What to do?

Demand from the landlord the original certificate of ownership, the original passport, as well as a photocopy for your peace of mind. The best option would be to carefully study these documents and make sure that the owner is really in front of you and the document is genuine. There can be no talk of any transfer of money without documents that the owner allegedly forgot / gave for registration / will bring tomorrow. By the way, reletting an apartment is possible on official terms: legally this is called “sublease” and this type of relationship is legal and regulated by an agreement. But to do this, it is necessary to obtain a written statement of the owner’s consent to sublease; in addition, the apartment owner’s signature must be on the agreement itself.

Just look

In addition to dishonest tenants, there are unpleasant parasitic agencies in the market that can bring a lot of harm to tenants. On the one hand, everything looks legal. You find an advertisement on the Internet for a profitable rental. You call by phone, arrive at the office, only to find out that the living space you want is, alas, already occupied. But don’t rush to run away, there are still good options. You sign a cooperation agreement and for a decent amount of money you receive a list of addresses with rental apartments (usually this list is no different from what is on sites with free advertisements). You go to the addresses and realize that the apartments are not at all suitable for normal life or have been occupied for a long time. You return to the office, but almost immediately leave with nothing. What is the problem? The fact is that, according to the contract, no one is obliged to find you an apartment. You have found yourself in a news agency and, by agreement, pay only for viewing the options selected for you.

What to do?

It’s trite, but don’t sign an agreement with suspicious agencies. And if you decide to do this, then carefully read what exactly you are giving money for. Under no circumstances should you pay anything before you sign a lease agreement for a specific apartment and make sure that you can live in it. Let the proverb “they don’t take money to watch” become your slogan.

So that there is no spirit

If you are a dead sparrow and think that you will not be fooled, here is another option - with the old lady God's dandelion in the leading role. Let's say you found an apartment and even successfully moved in, paying rent for several months in advance. You've been living happily ever after, when suddenly your apartment owner comes to see you and tells you that your neighbors are complaining: music is playing loudly, jackhammers are working, tigers are growling, prostitutes are moaning. You are trying to justify that you are hardly ever at home, but in response you receive additional accusations that you polluted the apartment, drove anyone around, and in the end, broke the latch - to no avail, in general. As a result, the landlady insists that it’s time for you to pack your things and move out, threatening to change the locks in your absence (and probably not bluffing). Of course, she won’t give up the money.

What to do?

Needless to say, the situation is not easy. If you are dealing with an experienced swindler, then even the contract will not save you, because, most likely, there is a clause on termination if the conditions of stay in the apartment are violated. If the accusations against you become offensive, file a lawsuit, but be careful: the hostess may have persuaded the neighbors, who will confirm with a blue eye that during your stay, jackhammers were indeed knocking and tigers were growling. Only CCTV cameras (plus your expenses) and a lawsuit can save the situation here.

Eye and eye

There are several main signs of possible fraud. The first is a suspiciously low price for an incredibly fabulous home. The second is the landlord's requirement for a deposit, advance payment, or any other amount before you move in. The third is the absence of an agreement. According to lawyers, only 5% of rental housing transactions are legally secured. In an effort to avoid unnecessary expenses, naive citizens rely on the words of people they do not know. Meanwhile, it is difficult to prove fraud without written contracts. If you are renting an apartment from a second cousin’s friend and family bonds do not allow you to question them, at least ask for a receipt.

And it's worth remembering that a real estate fraudster rarely appears in the guise of a crime boss from a daytime TV series on the federal channel. As a rule, he does not have gold teeth, bats, an animal grin or tattoos. More often this is a friendly, sociable woman, a single mother with two children. A character whom you will most likely believe when you hear: “I don’t have a passport now, it’s on exchange”, “I can’t present a certificate of ownership, it’s with my grandmother in Ryazan” or “oh, what kind of Moldovans are you, this my uncle Seryozha came to stay, he will leave soon.”

Maria Solovyova

22.03.2016