Источник Daily Mail.co.uk, London, United Kingdom
Заголовок EXCLUSIVE My tenant from hell cost me £20k: Man furious to find fraudster had rented out his own home on Airbnb... but what he saw on CCTV left him stunned
Дата 20240921

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EXCLUSIVE My tenant from hell cost me £20k: Man furious to find fraudster had
rented out his own home on Airbnb... but what he saw on CCTV left him stunned

EXCLUSIVE My tenant from hell cost me £20k: Man furious to find fraudster had
rented out his own home on Airbnb... but what he saw on CCTV left him stunned

Has your tenant scammed YOU? Email• Коммуникации » Интернет-коммуникации » Электронная почта arthur.parashar@mailonline.co.uk

By Arthur Parashar

Published: 09:26 BST, 21 September 2024 | Updated: 09:42 BST, 21 September
2024

e-mail• Коммуникации » Интернет-коммуникации » Электронная почта

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A landlord has been left footing a £20k bill after a fraudster tenant secretly
sublet his flat on Airbnb - before changing the locks, hosting wild house
parties and running off with his furniture.

Rohann Divanji, 39, has spent the last year fighting his tenant in a costly
legal battle as well repairing the trail of destruction left behind• Музыка » Песни » Песни Slipknot » Left Behind

• Литература » Художественная литература » Поэзия » Стихотворные произведения » Песни » Песни Slipknot » Left Behind
in the
two-bedroom apartment in Canary Wharf, east London .

Mr Divanji, a product manager at a tech firm, claims that in October 2023, his
new tenant somehow bypassed employment and credit checks on OpenRent by
claiming to be a data analyst on a salary of £78k-a-year.

However, this was all part of a scam and the landlord became embroiled in a
nightmare that saw him forced to spend £2.5k on legal fees to evict the
tenant, £5k on damaged furniture and stolen goods on top of the six months of
rent he has lost, which would have been £15k.

To add insult to injury, Mr Divanji even watched the tenant from hell walk out
with the furniture he had paid for.

Shocking CCTV shared with MailOnline shows two men brazenly walking through
the block of flats with Mr Divanji's belongings, including a massive sofa and
washing machine before loading it up into a yellow van parked up outside.

The devastated landlord told MailOnline: ' It feels horrible, it's really
frustrating. I trusted the system... but n o one is willing to play their part
in resolving this issue.'

Landlord Rohann Divanji (pictured) has been left with a £20,000 bill after his
tenant stole an identity and sublet his flat on Airbnb

Pictured: Rohann Divanji found his Canary Wharf flat was being listed on
Airbnb by his scamming tenant

Pictured: On February 2, Mr Divanji went round to his own flat and found this
man, Asad, who was claiming to be the tenant's brother

Pictured: On July 17, a massive group of revellers arrived outside the
building for a party at the flat but the police showed up

Pictured: On the same day, several items of furniture, including a sofa were
taken from the property. An eviction notice had been served several months
before

Pictured: The furniture, including a washing machine, was then loaded into a
yellow van parked outside

Mr Divanji added: ' Even when I spoke to the solicitors no one has a clue on
how to handle the situation where a tenancy agreement is signed with the fake
person.

'And what do you do with that? How do you handle that? And can you just go in
and change the locks, or do you wait?

Read More

EXCLUSIVE

My tenant has been secretly renting my own home on Airbnb for £190 a night

'And we just literally had to wait until a court date comes through the court,
which takes time and obviously they have a massive backlog.'

It comes after we revealed how another landlord had been scammed by their
fitness influencer tenant who was secretly renting the flat on Airbnb and
Booking.com to tourists for £190-a-night while jetting off on luxury holidays
to Dubai.

Mr Divanji told how a woman called Sue came to view the property and told him
that she had a team of data analysts who wanted to rent the flat.

A tenant, who posed as 'Poonam Grover', then paid a deposit and was able to
pass the reference report with a forged driver's licence.

Mr Divanji said that everything seemed above board for the first few months,
until his neighbour complained about parties being hosted at the Canary Wharf
flat and later discovered it being flogged for as much as £250-a-night on
Airbnb.

The landlord contacted the tenant to inform them they had breached the tenancy
conditions and requested that they take down the listing and vacate the flat.

But to his horror, when he visited his own property he found that the locks
had been changed and that a man called 'Asad' who was claiming to be the
tenant's brother was living there.

Pictured: The tenant stole a woman's identity and somehow managed to pass the
OpenRent credit checks

Pictured: The original listing that Mr Divanji put up on OpenRent, but the
sofa was stolen

Pictured: Mr Divanji's is loaded up into a yellow van which was waiting
outside the flats

Pictured: A pair of men were caught on CCTV taking the items out of the flat,
before leaving the building

Pictured: A washing machine is removed from the flat and then driven away in a
yellow van

Pictured: When Mr Divanji got the flat back, he returned to smashed glass
doors and further damage

Pictured: Broken beds were left in the room after the tenant trashed the
property

Mr Divanji confronted him before reporting this to the Met Police. He then
served the tenant with Section 8• Музыка » Музыкальные произведения » Музыкальный альбом » Альбомы Hussein Fatal » Section 8 (альбом) and 21 eviction notices.

The audacious scam ended up in the courts, with a judge ruling in the
landlord's favour on June 26. The tenant, who did not show up for the hearing,
was ordered to leave and pay back the money owed.

On the same day, the concierge for the block of flats informed Mr Divanji that
a group of three boys had entered the flat. When Mr Divanji went round to ask
them to leave, he found a broken balcony door.

Two days later, another set of guests who booked the flat on Airbnb were
shocked to find out they had unwittingly been caught up in the scam.

CCTV from July 17 shows police swooping on the block of flats after dozens of
revellers had gathered for a party hosted by someone staying at the flat.

After the police dispersed the crowds, two men were later seen leaving with
several furniture items and loading it into a yellow van.

Pictured: Messages showing Mr Divanji was able to book his own flat on Airbnb.
They then asked for a £150 deposit

Pictured: Reviews from guests staying at the unlawfully sublet flat on Airbnb

Mr Divanji reported this to police but four days later, the same crew returned
to take more items from the flat.

The police came to the scene and asked the person to leave and took the flat
keys off him.

Mr Divanji changed the locks back on July 26 and upon inspection found that a
sofa, washing machine, vacuum cleaner, mop, broom, two mirrors, microwave,
kettle and desk had been stolen.

Footage shows Mr Divanji returning to the repossessed flat for the first time,
with damage visible to both beds, while the glass balcony door had been
smashed and discarded.

The landlord told MailOnline: 'All of this just means that I lost eventually
six months of rent. That's £12,500 to £15,000. I lost £2,500 on the legal
fees.

'And the damage and the loss of property was another £4,000 to £5,000. She
stole my washing machine and my sofas, and all this furniture I kept.'

Mr Divanji added: ' The most important thing actually in this case was she
used fake identity documents and yet passed OpenRent's reference checks.'

The landlord said he was able to contact the person whose identity had been
stolen. They confirmed that it was their driving license, but with a different
photo.

'And so what was happening is this girl essentially created fake documents,
including a fake driver's license• Транспорт » Водительское удостоверение, fake salary slips a fake company website to
show she was employed and nothing in that was real,' he added.

'The birth certificate, everything was fake, and I didn't know that I didn't
realise that until June.

'I had to go through the legal process, go through an eviction, pay thousands
of pounds to evict her.

'Eventually she just left on her own. She damaged the flat. The flat was
completely ruined and she stole all the furniture.'

The landlord still does not know who the identity thief is - and is battling
with police to investigate further. He told how the rental money was being
transferred to him by a different name, but that the fake tenant routinely
came up with excuses.

He added: ' I trusted that OpenRent had given me a document which says 'ID
check verified' and everything is good to go with this person. But they also
didn't acknowledge their part. They said, 'We'll look into this and close it',
and they never came back to me with anything.'

Mr Divanji even tried booking his own flat on Airbnb and received a message
from a company called MD Management, who requested a £150 deposit.

He added: 'Somehow Airbnb just facilitate all of this where anyone can come
in, create a profile, change the name.

Pictured: The yellow van, filled with furniture, leaving the Canary Wharf
block of flats

'I don't know what kind of ID checks they do. But the same thing just goes on
and on, and they just send you a standard kind of cookie cutter response,
saying, 'Oh this is between you and your tenant, and we won't do anything'.

'It is completely [unregulated] It feels like there's so much mismanagement in
this.'

It's understood Airbnb removed the listing in March 2024 and that the flat was
not booked through the rental company on July 17 - the day the furniture was
stolen.

Mr Divanji fears that this is a 'problem where it's only going to grow simply
because of the way the legislation is changing'.

He added: 'We as landlords are under kind of so much scrutiny and regulation
where you can't miss anything, otherwise you'll be fined.

'But on the tenant side, there's little to nothing we can do. There's no one
to chase. There's no one to get the money back from.

'And for me, even insurance• Страхование doesn't cover this. So I've just been completely
let down.

'Naturally, she never showed up to defend herself because she was never going
to. She's made tonnes of money on the flat.'

A spokesman for the Met Police said: 'Police were called in July to reports of
a theft of a sofa and a washing machine from an address in Lamington Heights
E14.

'It was further alleged the address had been illegally sublet.

'There have been no arrests; enquiries continue.'

A spokesman for OpenRent confirmed that they have 'a case where a tenant has
defrauded a landlord' which 'is now a police matter'.

They added: 'In terms of our referencing service - this is a two part product
comprising tenant vetting, and corresponding insurance• Страхование which covers the
landlord in case of unpaid rent, property damage and other costs up to £50,000
in case something goes wrong (even if the reference check fully passed).

'In this case the landlord purchased a reference check, but opted out of the
insurance• Страхование cover. It's also worth noting that risks were highlighted on the
report meaning the advice was to 'proceed cautiously' - often in this case
landlords will conduct further checks of their own, request a guarantor, or
seek rent in advance to reduce their risks. The best option to mitigate the
risk• Страхование » Риск though is the insurance• Страхование component.

'When purchasing a reference check on its own, the service exists as an
advisory report to help landlords make an informed decision when selecting
tenants.

'As above, if landlords want a guarantee against potential losses from that
tenant, then the insurance• Страхование component exists exactly for that purpose.

'Thankfully situations like this are exceptionally rare among the 250,000
properties we help let every year; we are really saddened to hear of what
happened here, and we are doing our best to support this landlord and the
police
as far as possible to bring this to a resolution.'

Airbnb declined to comment.

Dubai London Airbnb

============= Итог: 2,7250 ; Коммуникации#Интернет-коммуникации#Электронная почта 1,7500 ; Страхование#Риск 1,3398 ; Музыка#Музыкальные произведения#Музыкальный альбом#Альбомы Hussein Fatal #Section 8 (альбом) 1,3359 ; Музыка#Песни#Песни Slipknot#Left Behind 1,2500 ; Транспорт#Водительское удостоверение

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