Member Article

How to avoid property rental & sales scams in the UK

The rise of the online property market has brought with it a growing number of property scams the most common being rental scams involving fake landlords renting out properties that are not theirs and taking as many deposits as possible.

These unscrupulous criminals also target foreigners moving to the UK often insisting that all the contracts and monies must be sent by the tenants before they arrive and on arrival they find the property either does not exist or the person they sent money to is not the legal owner.

The easiest way to avoid these scams is to use a professional letting agent or Estate Agent preferably one who is a member of the Safe Agent Scheme http://www.safeagents.co.uk

If you are searching online make sure you are on a website or a property portal like agentswall.com, zoopla, rightmove etc who are only advertising properties that have been listed by registered estate agents not individual owners properties.

Beware of online classified property listings either for rent or for sale and if possible always visit the property yourself. Make sure you do as many back ground checks as you can on both the property and the person. If the landlord will only communicate via email or asks for your bank or credit details it is likely to be a scam.

Similarly with properties listed for sale, there have been many crimes involving fake owners selling or financing properties that are not theirs.

Also beware of buy-to-let-schemes and companies contacting you either by post or telephone offering hands off investments with high guaranteed returns or promising to make you a property millionaire virtually overnight!

Many of these investment schemes have proved to be scams and non savvy buyers have lost millions investing in property that does not exist or belongs to someone else.

If you have any doubts or suspect it may be a scam do not hand over any money and report all of the details to the financial conduct authority:

It really is a case of if it looks too good to be true it more than likely is!

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Joe Graham .