London letting market rife with fraudulent activity

The latest insight from London lettings and estate agent, Benham and Reeves, has revealed the uphill struggle facing many London lettings agents, with the firm encountering forged IDs, digitally altered supporting documents and undeclared CCJs and IVAs on a monthly basis. 

In London's fast paced rental market, the speed at which properties are let can lead to huge financial and emotional distress for landlords if a rogue tenant manages to bypass the screen process undetected.

Not only does the pace of the market pose a risk, but huge demand from tenants means that letting agents have become increasingly reliant on digital screening to help lighten their workload. But whilst digital and AI technology has evolved rapidly and can process vast amounts of data in a timely fashion, rogue tenants have also evolved with it, becoming increasingly more inventive in how they trick the system.

The solution? Human involvement and ingenuity, as Benham and Reeves believe there is no substitute for the experience of a savvy lettings agent when it comes to fighting fraudsters targeting the lettings sector.

Last month, Benham and Reeves detected: - 

• Eight forged passports or IDs.

• 40 digitally altered bank statements, utility bills, payslips or proof of address..

• 50 forged employment references.

• 30 undeclared county court judgements (CCJs) and  individual voluntary arrangements (IVAs).

Here's just four real world examples of how this thorough approach has helped prevent huge financial loss to London landlords.

• High net worth fraud: A supposed art dealer with an undisclosed CCJ of £12,151 provided altered bank statements and was found to be in arrears at an undisclosed tenancy while claiming Universal Credit. Without careful cross-referencing, this fraudster could have easily slipped through the cracks.

• Organised crime network: Several applications from different tenants shared suspicious similarities, such as identical email formats and switched referees. All references were found to be fraudulent, leading to police involvement. This case highlighted the importance of scrutinising not just individual applications but patterns across multiple ones.

• Cloned company scam: Multiple applications were made by employees of a fake media company. Altered bank statements, fake payslips, and undisclosed addresses linked these applicants to a newly formed lettings business likely involved in illegal activities. The discovery of these links prevented a potentially large-scale fraud.

• Fraudulent barrister: A barrister applied with what appeared to be legitimate documents. However, closer inspection revealed altered bank statements and a gambling addiction. The applicant had also provided fake landlord details to hide arrears at their current tenancy. This case underscores the importance of not taking professional status at face value and digging deeper.

Director of Benham and Reeves, Marc von Grundherr, commented:

"The lettings market has become a key target for fraudsters due to the illicit profits they can generate quickly and over a short period of time and nowhere more so than in London, where demand is high and rental values are at their highest.

Landlords themselves must be on guard but even more so, it's down to letting agents to provide that vital line of defence which simply can't be upheld through technology alone.

The reality is that some agents simply don't do an adequate job

Unfortunately, every agent does things differently and so landlords really need to be sure their agent is going the extra mile.

For us that means strict digital ID verification but it also includes a manual check of all documentation, rigorous checks of employment references including domain names, registration details and IP addresses cross referenced with payslips and bank statements, an online search of the applicant including a review of their social media profiles, open-source tools and search engines, information sharing with the police and more.

So whilst it's inevitable that some crooks will slip through the net, this threat can be drastically reduced by taking a proactive approach to tenant verification and not leaving it to technology alone."