Estate agent con warning

Estate agents association IPI has warned househunters of a new type of con, reports Het Laatste Nieuws. Crooks put up bogus ‘to let’ signs in popular residential areas, before potential tenants are requested to pay a ‘refundable’ deposit into an account to get a key to view the property. The key never turns up and the money is never refunded. IPI received 300 complaints in the first half of 2012, resulting in 28 sentences; the figure for the previous calendar year was 37. “It’s serious for the consumer,” says IPI spokesman Dajo Hermans, “and it gives our trade a bad reputation.”