Fraudlant tenants

Baby01032012

My experience with criminal tenants who secured an apartment based on false references is well documentated in another thread. That one cost me €10,000.

Last week I was letting another apartment. One set of tenants who turned up at the viewing appeared like the perfect tenant. Very charming, very genuine, said with 9 years in their last place they never asked the landlord for anything. Told a good story.They did appear too good to be true.

Given my previous experience I was very wary. They gave me excellent written references with good positions in leading employers. All too good to be true. It was all a con. Only for my previous experience I could have been caught out here.

With the criminal/ prostitution gang in my other apartment, I think the guy I met last week in this apartment may have been the guy I saw on CCTV breaking in back in November in my other apartment after the guards raided the place.

I’ll talk to my detectives. The reason for my post is for landlords to be aware of fraudlant tenants who appear too good to be true. Once they get in and start their business stop paying rent it’s impossible to get them out. And letting agents don’t care once they get someone in.

I’d share some details but forum charter prevents me from doing so.

Samuel T. Cogley

And people wonder why LL's ask for an onerous amount of paperwork from tenants.

dubrov

How did you catch them out in the end?

The_Conductor

Fool me once- more fool you, fool me twice- more fool me. You've learnt a hard lesson from your experiences- however, you have learnt the lesson. There are many people out there- who haven't.

mistress_gi

These kind of situations make me weep. It makes life for genuinely good tenants (such as myself) so much harder than it needs to be.
Good on you OP for catching them early!

antoinolachtnai

Not on the same level, but going back through old emails I notice that a person convicted of a social welfare fraud a few weeks ago tried to rent a house off me a few years ago. He was very plausible too, though at the time the story didn’t really stack up when I thought about it.

Browney7

Samuel T. Cogley wrote: »

And people wonder why LL's ask for an onerous amount of paperwork from tenants.

But if the OP didn't trust their gut they could have gotten caught out based on the gold plated paperwork they were presented with? No substitute for instinct and gut feel in finalising your decision

antoinolachtnai

I would say that being thorough is a lot more important than ‘gut feel’. The thing is to figure out who the prospective tenants really are and how they are going to fund the rent. Gut feel can easily end up being just a load of prejudices.

myshirt

As they say, if it's location, location, location for house hunting, it's reference check, reference check, reference check for letting out a property.

Baby01032012

dubrov wrote: »

How did you catch them out in the end?

Written reference - errors on the headed paper. Mobile numbers used for referees, never trust. I always google the company and use the published numbers and ask for the person the referee rather than ring some random mobile.

The cheek or irony is that one of them gave a written reference saying they worked for the fraud unit of a major bank. His knowledge of fraud however came from the wrong side of the law.

doolox

If the candidate tenant has given you the number of a pal of his who is not a previous landlord but is really having it on pretending to be a landlord???

Same applies for bosses and other people used for character references.

Looks very difficult to be sure of anything nowadays.

Samuel T. Cogley

doolox wrote: »

If the candidate tenant has given you the number of a pal of his who is not a previous landlord but is really having it on pretending to be a landlord???

Same applies for bosses and other people used for character references.

Looks very difficult to be sure of anything nowadays.

Cross check, which is why you look for not only a work reference but proof money is going into the bank etc.