Contract for Dublin flat - strange

Cousin it

Firstly, I apologise if this is in the wrong section, it seemed appropriate to me. Secondly, this is on behalf of my French friend who is coming to Dublin next week and wants to rent a flat. I am in Mexico at the moment and thus, am unable to verify any of the information with which he has been provided.

Now to the matter at hand: He has been in contact with a potential landlord and has received a contract which seems.... ok, for the most part. i have a few issues with it and was wondering if anyone could allay both my and my friends doubts.

1. Every word begins with a capital letter. Every single word.

2. The English contained in the contract is a bit hit and miss, not horrific, but not spot-on, which makes me doubt its authenticity and whether it would be legally binding or not. (lots of legal speak but lots of simple grammatical errors also, is this common?)

3. They are asking for a deposit of e1,000 as well as the first month's rent, which seems fine I suppoose. However, they are asking for the money to be transferred to their lawyer's bank account which is in London; is this standard practice?

4. My friend contacted the potential flatmate he might be living with who has a peculiarly similar standard of English to the landlord and claims that, while the flat is amazing, she has been unable to live there for a while due to her 'mummy's illness' (this use of language is incongruent with the rest of the e-mail). She also brings up bizarre things like whether my friend has a dog or not as hers died three months ago and she is sad and has cried a lot.......?

Apart from these issues it all seems fine but we're both wary of a 'too-good-to-be-true' scenario as the flat seems rather nice and is in a fantastic location. Forgive any perceived paranoia, my friend and I were flatmates in Bilbao this past year and got burned quite badly by a rather nasty landlord during the first few months.

Any and all help or advice would be greatly appreciated and thanks for trawling through the essay hahahaha.

All the best,
Cousin it

Grolschevik

Cousin it wrote: »

1. Every word begins with a capital letter. Every single word.

2. The English contained in the contract is a bit hit and miss, not horrific, but not spot-on, which makes me doubt its authenticity and whether it would be legally binding or not. (lots of legal speak but lots of simple grammatical errors also, is this common?)

Amateur landlords often just cut and paste prepared lease documents from the web, so poor language use isn't of itself a dead giveaway.

However, many of the other points you mention would raise suspicions. Rental scams are increasingly common.

I'd suggest that maybe you might get quicker and more appropriate responses in the Accommodation & Property forum (http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=38).

There are rules against making duplicate threads, so maybe you should ask one of the mods to move this to there, if you think it's appropriate.

lOWCOUNTRY

Cousin it wrote: »

Firstly, I apologise if this is in the wrong section, it seemed appropriate to me. Secondly, this is on behalf of my French friend who is coming to Dublin next week and wants to rent a flat. I am in Mexico at the moment and thus, am unable to verify any of the information with which he has been provided.

Now to the matter at hand: He has been in contact with a potential landlord and has received a contract which seems.... ok, for the most part. i have a few issues with it and was wondering if anyone could allay both my and my friends doubts.

1. Every word begins with a capital letter. Every single word.

2. The English contained in the contract is a bit hit and miss, not horrific, but not spot-on, which makes me doubt its authenticity and whether it would be legally binding or not. (lots of legal speak but lots of simple grammatical errors also, is this common?)

3. They are asking for a deposit of e1,000 as well as the first month's rent, which seems fine I suppoose. However, they are asking for the money to be transferred to their lawyer's bank account which is in London; is this standard practice?

4. My friend contacted the potential flatmate he might be living with who has a peculiarly similar standard of English to the landlord and claims that, while the flat is amazing, she has been unable to live there for a while due to her 'mummy's illness' (this use of language is incongruent with the rest of the e-mail). She also brings up bizarre things like whether my friend has a dog or not as hers died three months ago and she is sad and has cried a lot.......?

Apart from these issues it all seems fine but we're both wary of a 'too-good-to-be-true' scenario as the flat seems rather nice and is in a fantastic location. Forgive any perceived paranoia, my friend and I were flatmates in Bilbao this past year and got burned quite badly by a rather nasty landlord during the first few months.

Any and all help or advice would be greatly appreciated and thanks for trawling through the essay hahahaha.

All the best,
Cousin it

If it's too good to be true......

hfallada

Wired to a lawyer office in London. Its most likely a scam. If a landlord wants it put into a lawyer account but yet sent you a ****ty contract that wasnt written by a lawyer. It seems a bit strange.

Bluegrass1

Scam. Scram.

LowKeyReturn

hullaballoo

LowKeyReturn wrote: »

You owe me 2 minutes and 7 seconds. You can wire the money directly to my bank account #six five four eight six two sort code ninety-seven seventy-eight ninety-eight.

Please thanks. (I really hope those aren't someone's bank details. If so, soz.)

Cousin it

Thanks lads!

AngryHippie

Run. don't give them any money, I'd go as far as giving the contact number to the gardai. If they are scamming people at least some of them might be able to get some deposit moneys back.
I know a few people that have been burned on these ones.

valleyoftheunos

Its an absolute scam designed to catch people just like your friend who don't know the city.

there is a thread in Acomm and property forum, here that deals with it.

The Lawyer in London, the absentee Landlord and pictures of a stunning apartment with US or European plugs and appliances are usually dead giveaways.:D