Beware of Housing Frauds in Singapore

It was a very bad experience for my friend who lost huge amount of money ($4600) on a Housing scam in Singapore. The actual experience is that my friend who is also a new comer to Singapore like me wanted to find an accommodation, The housing agents came handy in searching for a house.

In Singapore a general term is that the housing agent gets half a month of commission for finding a house. However they say they help you in dealing with the agreement etc., I found there is no registration etc. for the agreement. It's just a bit of paper written with some rules, also the agreements differs agent to agent. Some times you can find an agent registered and some work with a real estate company to assist.

So, My friend did approach an agent who was referred by one of his friend. The went and a saw a house in Balam road in Block 23. The house owner and the agent both were presented on that day my friend visit the house. The house owner quoted $1200 as monthly rent so the agent commission must by $600. Later on after fixing the rent, the agent and house owner went on a discussion and the agent came back to my friend and told him that if my friend pays 5 months advance rental(never heard of such deal) and 1 month security deposit (it's normal across the island) the owner will let the house for $1000.

Since the offer was attractive to my friend who felt he can save upto $1000 in five months time, he opt for the same and chosen it. He paid $2000 on the day he visited the house, and later on he paid $2000 through bank transfer and promised the owner of the house when he gets the key he will pay the remaining $2000. The agent was also prompt in taking his piece of cake $600 on the spot. The house owner committed he will hand over the house on 20th of August as some one else is already staying the apartment. You know what, after a weeks time, the Agent stopped picking up my friend's calls and the owner totally switched off his hand phone. My friend was in a impression he could get the key before August 20th, The time passed and the day has also came but the situation never changed.

I have joined with my friend to visit the place on August 20th to check if the owner or his representatives stays in the apartment. We got a shock as the tenant is still there on August 20th night 8:00pm. So I rushed to the nearby NPP and asked their assistance, the police called the agent he didn't pickup the call. Luckyly we had his friend's number hence the police called his friend and asked him tell his friend'd to call back. The agent promptly called, and told the police that he had an appointment with us by 9:00pm on the same day. We swear we didn't have any information like that before. So, we agreed to meet him at the location, and he came about 9:45pm saying he will help us raising a complaint, I know he was trying to escape from the situation like an approver however he was so adamant he didn't return the $600 commission as saying that is his service charges for showing the house (????)

We had tough time in getting the complaint report from the police as they said as per rules this needs to be handled with Small Claims court and directed us to the small claims court, however they gave us an incident number, finally we had pushed them to issue us a case report and successfully got it. But I should accept that the police is very friendly in Singapore however they have got some limitations handling such cases. Because of this, it's public's responsibility to be careful to avoid such experiences.

Now, my friend went to the court and they say that the agreement should hold the address of the house owner otherwise they can help and we need to approach the police. You know what my friend finally gave up and gone to his country embassy and asked they intervention in handling the case. He is also planning to approach local news papers to publish his bitter experience so that fellow Singaporean citizens and innocent foreigners will be notified for such acts.

So, guys please be aware Singapore is still low crime country and doesn't mean no crime, however this kind of cheating is treated here are civil case and cannot be counted in crime. I advice everybody to take extra caution before committing any money transactions. There are lots of cases discussed on Housing scams in here, so Beware of housing frauds in Singapore.

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