ABU DHABI // A family of six say they are weeks away from being homeless after “a gang of con artists” pretending to represent an Emirati landlord falsified papers and duped them out of a year’s rent.
Abu Dhabi resident Feda Jarad and her husband Aiman Awad, who has stage four kidney disease, said they and their four children would be left without a roof over their heads at the end of July after the scam, which left them Dh75,000 out of pocket.
“We are not given housing allowance by our employer, and have to scrimp and save the entire year to collect our rent money,” Ms Jarad said. “Now, that’s all gone.
“We don’t have money to pay for rent and our current lease is up in the last week of July. We don’t know what we will do.”
Ms Jarad said the fraudsters took advantage of the death of the owner of the building they were due to move into to cheat them, and then cancelled their mobile phones when the family tried to contact them.
Documents and video recordings of transactions between the victims and those who targeted them have been handed to police, who are initiating an investigation.
Ms Jarad saw the apartment, in a family friendly neighbourhood in Muroor, listed on the classified advertisement site Dubizzle.
The family’s trust was further won when their offer of a Dh5,000 down payment to reserve the flat was declined.
But the following day they were told that the family that owns the building wanted “at least half a year’s rent” in advance after having been cheated in the past, warning that they had other parties interested in renting the flat immediately.
“We were taken by surprise but told the man we were sincere and would pay the entire year’s rent once we received the legal documentation,” Ms Jarad said.
“We asked the estate agent if the owners were honest, trustworthy people, and he swore they were.
“He promised they would hand us all the legal documentation immediately upon surrendering the rent money.”
Having been assured by the young “local man” who claimed to be the family’s representative that he possessed all the necessary documents, the family filmed the meeting where they were provided with the “municipality approved” Tawtheeq contract papers and ID number, the Emirates ID and passport for the owner, the building’s plot map and the apartment key, while parting with the cash.
But when Mr Awad presented the documents at the municipality the next day, he was stunned to be told that while the documents were genuine, they related to an apartment that was already rented and registered to someone else in another area of the city.
The apartment building they believed they were renting a flat in was listed as part of a deceased man’s inheritance. The vacant two-storey building’s electricity had been cut off in May and the family have no legal right to live there.
“The con artists somehow knew this building was vacated recently, the owner deceased and nobody was looking after it,” Ms Jarad said. “They took advantage and somehow secured the keys or changed the locks.”
Going back and investigating the building, Mr Awad discovered a disposed placard bearing the name of a property management company.
He called them and found out that the building had recently been taken over by Abu Dhabi Commercial Properties.
The family made a series of recorded calls, from different phones, to the alleged estate agent and his accomplice.
The men made excuses and vowed to call back, then refused to answer further calls. They later cut off their phones.
The evidence is now with the police, after permission was granted by the court to launch an investigation.
“We are not holding out much hope we’ll get our money back,” Ms Jarad said. “We are at a loss, and just hope the perpetrators will be caught and we can raise awareness so no one else falls prey to the likes of these despicable people.”
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