Gumtree ad - private Landlord

maggiesoop

Son is looking to rent a flat currently advertised on Gumtree Aberdeen. Last year he was in halls at the Uni so I had no worries but this time I'm totally at a loss as to what to check for before handing over any money

I know that agencies ask for a lot of information to do reference and credit checks and I'm obviously concerned to be giving this private information to a landlord I've never met.

Can anyone give me some guidelines. Also can anyone give me the link for the Land Registry check in Scotland and is it also £3.

tHANKS

G_M

I'm not familiar with the Scottish LR, butfound

http://www.ros.gov.uk/customerservices/searchform.html

Gumtree? Be cautious of scams. Yes, there are genuine landlords/properties, but also dodgy ones.

Outgoing tenants have been known to advertise, pose as the LL, show applicants round, take a 'holding deposit' &/or rent etc, then vacate and vanish....If they do this with several applicants there's a lot of £ at stake.

Another scam is for the 'landlord' toshow applicant the exterior of a posh building but explain the current tenants are refusing access till they've moved out. But "there's a lot of interest so if you want the place you'll need to pay a deposit..."

I believe Scottish landlordshave to be registered with the council, so that is presumably one way to check the guy is legitimate....

agrinnall

It can work out OK - I got a flatshare through Gumtree when I was studying in Aberdeen for a while and it was all above board (and a good deal considering the high cost of renting there). But I would echo G_M's recommendation to be cautious, there were a lot of adverts that looked to me like they might well be scams. There's information about Aberdeen City Council's register of landlords here http://www.aberdeencity.gov.uk/housing/private_housing/landlord/hoa_landlord_registration.asp

benjus

Gumtree changed its charging policy a couple of years ago, and now it's much more expensive for private landlords to advertise properties there. It does, however, seem to have reduced the number of scams on there (the obvious ones, anyway).

I live in London, and found both my current rental property on there and the place I rented back in 2010. I much prefer dealing directly with the landlord - quite apart from the issue of fees I've yet to come across a Letting Agent that actually added any value.

lvm

I'm sure private landlords can post 2 adverts under rental section without having to pay anything (that was the case 6 months ago anyway when I did it). And you can easily just use different email addresses to get around that.

Was there not some rule coming into place that all adverts had to be accompanied by the landlord registration number? Or maybe that's coming up soon...

lvm

I'm sure private landlords can post 2 adverts under rental section without having to pay anything (that was the case 6 months ago anyway when I did it). And you can easily just use different email addresses to get around that.

Was there not some rule coming into place that all adverts had to be accompanied by the landlord registration number? Or maybe that's coming up soon...

benjus

However, IIRC you can't bump ads any more without paying, and most prospective tenants would probably assume that an ad that hasn't been bumped for more than a few days is probably stale. Creating a new ad with a new email address every day (or whatever frequency you want) would be a real pain.