Landlords accused of swindling tenants

Shelter estimates that as many as 946,000 people could have been cheated while renting a property in the private sector.

Its research showed that one in 50 Britons claimed they had been cheated by a landlord over the past three years.

Research carried out by the group uncovered five common methods rogue landlords were using to get money.

It said in some cases tricksters were breaking into empty properties and then renting them out to unsuspecting tenants, who were asked to hand over large sums of money as a deposit and rent, before the fraudster disappeared.

Other cases have involved landlords billing customers for hidden charges that tenants were never told about, such as charging a 35 fee for a letter or 90 for a telephone call.

In some cases, landlords asked people who wanted to rent their property to wire a sum of money to themselves or a friend or relative to show that they could afford the property.

The landlord would then ask for a copy of the transfer receipt as proof, but would use the code included on the receipt to transfer the money from a holding account to themselves.

Shelter said that although it was a legal requirement for landlords to put deposits into a tenancy deposit scheme, some were failing to do this, and were then withholding it at the end of the tenancy.

In other cases, landlords did not demand a deposit but instead asked that a friend or relative of the tenant acted as a guarantor. They then pursued these guarantors at the end of the tenancy for costly repairs to the property.

Shelter chief executive Campbell Robb said it was astonishing rogue landlords were apparently able to get away with it.

“With more and more people set to become private tenants in the future we believe this is a widespread problem that will create thousands more victims unless we urgently do something about it.”

Housing Minister Grant Shapps said: “Shelter’s campaign draws much-needed attention to the minority of landlords who seek to exploit their tenants, and the criminals preying on those looking for somewhere to live.

“I want to join with them in urging anyone looking for rented accommodation to protect themselves and their deposits by using agents belonging to accreditation schemes such as those run by the Association of Residential Letting Agents.”

n YouGov questioned 2,234 people during August.