[tashtb]

I just viewed a studio flat today in response to an ad on Gumtree and it was great at a reasonable price, only since I wouldn't be renting through an established estate agents I'm a little paranoid...

Now there are no red flags like with the Western Union type scams. The guy who posted (of 'No 1 London Ltd') referred me to another man who lived in the place for the viewing.
- This man showed me the place, and was very nice
- He said he takes care of renting while the landlord is away, which is often (the studios are sometimes rented out for very short periods, so I assume this is why the landlord can't do everything himself)
- The man sent me a copy of the contract by email upon request, and the terms look fine

'No 1 London Ltd' doesn't show up much on a Google search, apart from vague business listings (which aren't always reliable) so I am wondering why, unless it's a tiny company (the landlord is the Director) or is just a token name for his dealings with the block of studio flats he owns.

I have access to case law databases, and the landlord and his company were involved in a dispute back in 1990 (something to do with business premises he was renting out) and it mentioned that he had declared his company insolvent back then. Of course that was almost 20 years ago. I'm not sure if this is a huge red flag; it was a long time ago I studied any corporate or civil law.

What can I do to ensure everything is legit before I transfer the deposit?

[Bluey]

See our stay safe tips and read through the scams on this forum, which also includes scammers who show tenants properties in person which do happen but are quite rare compared to WU email scams.

These are anything from tenants posing as landlords to criminals who book short let apartments for a week and then pose as the landlord. Some scammers cite legitimate limited company details which they nick from companies house while the actual company are aware that someone is posing as them. Some scammers even produce websites with fake adverts.

I am not qualified to give advice. You could perhaps contact Shelter and ask for their advice.

Some suggestions made in the past on threads like this encourage the poster to pull the ownership records for a property from the land registry website for £4 and ask for proof of ID, proof of permission to let in order to proceed to verify that the agent and owner are who they say they are.

You could pull the ownership records of the company for £1 from the companies house website and see if the details coincide (see the webcheck service). There are 2 similarly named companies in that database. You could make enquiries with the neighbours or porter of the block if you have any reservations. Have you googled the email address, mobile number, address of the property and so on?

http://www.gumtree.com/help/stay_safe#item73

[Piggythegirl]

I was in the exact same position as you a while back, I was so dubious. The company didn't have a website, but just listed company details on other sites, it didn't have a professional email address. However, I did a bit of stalking, went back to the apartment a day later and caught a tenant leaving and asked them who ran the property, and it added up. I also Google street mapped the address and I could see it was an existing shop. Maybe ask to go to meet them at their offices if you want to proceed. But small companies like this can be genuine and are more common than you would think. You're right to have your wits about you though, I was SO paranoid, but thankfully now all is well. Good luck.