Does this sound fishy?

Hi, I’m a bit confused about who has been responding to me and hope someone can help to figure it out.

I requested a viewing with an Open Rent landlord with a male name, got no response through the site, then received a text message from a woman. I went to the viewing and believe it was the same woman at the house, but she certainly didn’t seem to be the landlord, and was honestly quite off-putting.

A couple of weeks go by and I request a viewing with a different landlord, again no response. A week later I received another text message from the same woman who had responded to my last unrelated enquiry.

Fishy? Or is this common?
I thought we were always speaking directly with landlords, and Open Rent states that it will always be the landlord who shows you around.

Just curious and don’t really want to keep encountering this particular woman.

Hi, not something I recognise but it would be perfectly reasonable to ask her how this can be?

It’s possible she may handle the viewings for various friends or relatives? (I have considered offering to do this for a friend who was nervous of renting their flat out, as a result of which it stood empty for 18 months during the pandemic) Some people just don’t like meeting people, aren’t free themselves during the day, or may live some distance away.

But I agree you are right to be cautious in case the flats are being sub-let illegally, also as a tenant I think I would want to meet the landlord, ideally.

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Hi Peter, thank you for your thoughtful and helpful response!

Hopefully it is just a case of her handling viewings for friends or family, but it raised some red flags, for sure & I’d definitely prefer to meet the landlord.

I am a landlord and I always want to meet the tenants. If I were a tenant I would want to see who I am giving my money to

Thank you, Colin! It really did seem strange to me that a landlord wouldn’t want to meet me, at all.

It also struck me as odd that there were no questions asked. They didn’t want to know anything about me, just scheduled a viewing.

no questions ?very odd .I always ask questions first. Could be a scam

That’s my concern, really. I’m used to disclosing at least a few details about myself prior to viewing anything.

Fingers crossed they’ll be stopped if it is some sort of scam :crossed_fingers:t2:

Report it to open rent. As landlords we are supposed to go through vetting which includes a copy of title deeds. They can investigate. Your problem now could be getting a straight answer from open rent. I have much praise for their premise but they are a bit shaky still on delivery. They leave too long between questions being asked and replying.

Thank you, Harbinder! I’ll give that a go and see what they have to say.

If they’re iffy at the enquiry stage, giving you a bad feeling, I suggest you walk away and deal with someone better. Trust your instincts and don’t be lured into a scam or dodgy deal by an apparent bargain deal.

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Hi Andrew, thank you for weighing in.
I think you’re right, and I’ll be exercising more caution from now on! :confused:

I am in a similar situation:
I have enquired about a house advertised at £1350 pcm. I didn’t receive a reply through the website. After 5 days got an email in regards to the same house. The landlord told me that his son had to put the advert on, asked me a few questions and then explain me the situation with the house, the price and how the house in on the market to sell. Due to the market being a bit low, he is renting it for max 2 years (Ideal for us). He sent me a link with the house advert and it is currently 825K to buy. My partner said that a house on sale for 825K and being rented for only £1350 seems too good to be true…

The landlord (whom I have been speaking) has told us that he is retired to another country and wants to sell the house eventually, he is not interested in making profit from the rental otherwise he pays tax. It is all a bit confusing.

What do you think?

Look on the land registry and check he is the Landlord

Thank you for your answer. Is it just GOV.UK?

https://eservices.landregistry.gov.uk/eservices/FindAProperty/view/QuickEnquiryInit.do