‘Beware of fraud property brokers’

A source at the office of the Abu Dhabi Attorney-General has cautioned the public to be careful while dealing with real estate brokers and not to hand over money to them before ensuring that they are licenced and authorised by the property landlords to sign tenancy contracts.

The source also advised the public to ensure they (the middlemen) obtained a licence from the competent authorities to practice the business.

“Some crooks recourse to publish bogus advertisements in newspapers and websites to dupe the public,” the source said. The Public Prosecution has brought to light many such fraud cases and referred them to the Misdemeanors Court in Abu Dhabi, and called for handing down the strictest punishments against the defendants.

The source said such fraudsters pose a threat to the structure of the real estate market in the emirate by undermining the relations between the parties concerned in property trading processes. He stressed the need to follow proper legal procedures on rent contracts, and to maintain the rights of all parties of the contract.

The source also said that the tenants should not rush to complete the contract, and be keen on referring the matter to the bodies concerning the attestation of the contracts.

“The price illusion, which does not comply with the reality of the market, is the weak point through which the fraudsters take advantage to prey on their victims,” the source said.

In such a case, a person had leased one flat to a number of persons after taking advantage of their lack of knowledge on the procedures to be followed for concluding the tenancy contracts.

The tenants lodged a complaint with the body concerned after they were served a warning to vacate the apartment.

The occupants of the apartment included an Arab woman, who claimed that she had signed a contract with the defendant and paid him Dh25,000 just two days before the warning was served. After investigating the complaint, it appeared that the broker knew that the present position in the flat, the subject matter of the case, was illegal.

In the second case, another Arab lady reported to the police that she had signed a bogus contract with a broker following an advertisement in a local daily on a flat at an attractive price. At the time of receiving the flat, she was shocked to meet the owner of the flat, who told her that she had been duped.

In another incident, a woman was defrauded by an unlicenced broker when she rented a flat through him and paid him half the value of the rent without getting any receipt. Next day, she went to the place where she met the broker to pay the rest of the amount, but did not find him.

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