DOHA: Some real estate agents are demanding a year’s rent in cash in advance for apartments in new buildings in some working class localities of the city with the lure that rentals are really cheap.
But market sources say one needs to be cautious as such offers can be tricky since there have been cases where people, attracted by low rents, have made large cash payments and agents couldn’t be traced.
An Asian engineer working in a private concern was recently offered a brand new three-bedroom apartment in Mansoura for a monthly rent of QR5,500, but the condition was that he paid a year’s rent (QR66,000) in advance. The engineer told The Peninsula that he liked the apartment which was in a spanky new building and nice and wanted to take it. He said he agreed to pay a year’s rent in advance but insisted for safety reasons that he would make one-off payment through cheque so there is record.
“The agent didn’t agree and said all the money needed to be paid in cash and only then would the tenancy agreement be signed,” he said. The engineer said he asked the agent why he couldn’t agree to a one-time cheque payment. “The agent replied that the building’s owner wanted the payment to be in 100 percent cash.”
The Asian said that he became suspicious and didn’t enter into the deal and forgot about the apartment. According to him, he later learned that some agents, fly-by-night that they might have been, duped some customers this way and disappeared.
The Peninsula
