# Potential Property Scam? Rental - Living there



## Love1111 (May 14, 2018)

Me and my Filipino partner have been living in a property in a subdivision for two months now.

We ensured we had seen the property and got keys before handing over money and got receipts for all payments/deposit. The person we have dealt with is a representative of the owner who is 'abroad'.


I am highly suspicious because the lady is saying we need to wait 6 months for a contract until the owners return so we can deal with them. 

There are other things:

1. Attempt to sign up for comclark resulted in finding out we had a blacklisted address, they want a signed notarized contract .
2. Some guy came to the agent attempting to extract money from the previous tenants knocking on our door, he had loaned them cash or so he said. He went away with no argument when we stated we were not them.
3. The agent insisted we pay the whole electric bill during our first month, not just the period where we were living there.
4. She seems to think we cannot put the bills in our name
5. We need her for a gate pass, as only the agents/owner can get a gate pass, not a tenant.
6. The name on the bills is not the agent lady, but the 'overseas owner'.

This is all very fishy, and I am considering looking for another property. We have lived there for two months and paid the rent on time as agreed, but I am suspecting a problem.

Are we both right to be suspicious?


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## Manitoba (Jun 25, 2014)

It very well could be a scam. But given how many people are abroad and the lax approach to people here about a lot of the legal niceties, it could be all above board.

How much do you have at risk? Is it only the last month rent and the security deposit or is more at risk than that?

How much do you like the house and location? Is it your dream place or just some place to live?


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## Gary D (Oct 28, 2013)

Love1111 said:


> Me and my Filipino partner have been living in a property in a subdivision for two months now.
> 
> We ensured we had seen the property and got keys before handing over money and got receipts for all payments/deposit. The person we have dealt with is a representative of the owner who is 'abroad'.
> 
> ...


All seems pretty normal, welcome to the Philippines.


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## bigpearl (Jan 24, 2016)

Love1111 said:


> Me and my Filipino partner have been living in a property in a subdivision for two months now.
> 
> We ensured we had seen the property and got keys before handing over money and got receipts for all payments/deposit. The person we have dealt with is a representative of the owner who is 'abroad'.
> 
> ...


Welcome to the forum "Love", good choice of handle, hope you get some good info from this site.
As Gary said "welcome to the Philippines" and as we all know nothing is normal by western standards but hey we all know that and go with the flow most of the time or pick another country.

LOL, as for your ending statement "are we right to be suspicious?" definitely and never let your guard down.
Listen to Manitoba and his take on your situation. His observations are probably correct.

1/ Go with another provider or simply a dongle if you are not heavy users.
3/ Most likely never requested a meter reading when the last renters left. Only offer to pay for the month that you arrived and nothing more.
4/ Not worth the heartache of changing the electric or water bill to your name unless you plan to stay there for years, as long as you see the original bill just pay it.
5/ Extract the gate pass from the agent, your bad for being there for 2 months and only now asking questions, should have been sorted before you moved there.
6/ Very standard situation for tenants.

Good luck and I'm sure it will all sort itself out,,,,,,,,, eventually.

Cheers, Steve.


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## Love1111 (May 14, 2018)

I am generally quite a careful person, always have been especially in this area of the world!

After much wrangling we were able to get her to help sort out the contract at the local govt office, as you guys said she didn't see why we would need one until we pressed the point.

A dongle is no good, as I require at least 100GB monthly for my business operations back home and fixed-line, with my advanced router keeping a globe SIM as a failover during times of drop out with separate high gain antennas attached to that part of the router.

We will follow the advice re the electric bill.

I have quite a bit of travel and long term stay experience in Nepal, but of course phils is different.

As they say, its more fun in the phillipines!


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