Walker spoke to Derrick a few times by phone. She didn’t notice that the owner’s address on the lease had no city or ZIP code, and she didn’t look into the company it said he worked for, City Manager Group, which does not appear to be a legally registered business in Michigan. 8, 2019, the document shows, then Walker moved in. ![]() The two filled out and signed a “residential lease with an option to buy” on Feb. “I was just so excited, I didn’t pay attention,” she said. One tenant, Janell Poydras, 27, said that after he confronted the man who he believed was scamming him in 2019, the man padlocked the door to his house, putting him and his family on the street, and trapping his two puppies inside, where they froze to death. Victims told of seeing their belongings trashed on the curb and of losing their life savings. NBC News and Outlier Media interviewed eight victims of the fake landlord scam, including tenants who said they paid rent to fake landlords, a buyer who bought a house from a fake seller, and a homeowner who lost a home she had inherited to foreclosure after a fake landlord rented it out. ![]() “A good portion of clients will say they had no idea who they were supposed to be paying,” said Donovan McCarty, an attorney with the nonprofit Michigan Legal Services, who estimated he’d heard versions of this scam from 5 to 10 percent of the more than 200 Detroit tenants he’s represented this year. The Detroit housing landscape has become so tumultuous in recent years, with so many houses changing hands so often, that many Detroiters say they’re not sure who owns the house they live in. And prices in the city’s rental market are so low that reputable brokers and agencies stay away, leaving many renters to fend for themselves, relying on cash transactions and rent-to-own arrangements called land contracts that make them more susceptible to fraud. Sylvia Jarrus for NBC Newsĭiscriminatory lending practices, crumbling conditions and limited access to banks have put conventional home loans out of reach for many in Detroit - a predominantly Black and low-income city. ![]() A foreclosure crisis devastated homeownership, leaving tens of thousands of properties vacant. The scam has thrived in a city where a foreclosure crisis decimated homeownership, leaving tens of thousands of properties vacant or in the hands of out-of-town investors, and where vulnerable residents have struggled to find quality housing. Some fake sellers have even filed false deeds to make fake sales look legitimate, lawyers and experts say.īut culprits rarely face consequences, the investigation found. In others, con artists have broken into vacant houses, changed the locks, listed them for sale or rent, then collected payments from victims. In some cases, people who have lost their house to foreclosure have kept collecting rent from tenants without letting on that they’re no longer the landlord.
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