Inside 2017 Line Ups Double Page Pull Out
Year of The Scam Homeowner finds his flat has been rented out to 2 men while he was away. Landlady arrested for taking 3,400€ from tenants, including 1,000€ in fictitious fees, then forcing eviction by cutting water supply. Consell calls for Citizens to turn informer on illegally rented apartments. Many tales of rental heartache.
Nick Gibbs
It is perhaps inevitable that with Ibiza’s much reported property crisis, the opportunity to exploit the situation for criminal gain would attract some of society’s worst examples of moral-compass lacking lowlifes looking to
make a fast buck at the expense of other’s misery. With the arrival of the summer workers including the ideal prey of those blissfully ignorant of the potential to be subject of a rental rip off, we are starting to see evidence of the scammers at work. In this issue we report two quite different scenarios in so far as how the scam was set up, but very similar in their outcome of the victim ending up without a home and several thousand euros the poorer. We also report on the Consell’s call for the citizens of Ibiza to become its informer army, asking for illegal holiday lettings to be reported directly to them by email,
though we wait to see any evidence of effective action being taken as a result. Though all of these reports are indicative of the problems caused by the housing situation, they are not the most numerous, nor the saddest, reaching our inbox. That dubious honour has to go to the ever increasing number of people we are hearing from who are coming to the end of long term tenancies taken before the boom. People who are finding that their landlords are asking for huge increases in rent to write a new lease. Increases of 50%, 100%, we have heard tell of up to 300%,
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