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Citizens Advice Sutton (opens in new window) is warning people looking for accommodation to be aware of an apparent ‘spare room’ housing scam. 

The charity has in the last couple of months been contacted by several separate clients who have been victims of what appears to be a housing scam. Their advisers have spoken with at least five people who were looking for accommodation and contacted a landlord through the SpareRoom website. 

They all paid a deposit of rent in advance for a room with a resident landlord. They did not move into the room because the landlord claimed to have COVID and then when the prospective renters asked for their money back claimed that he had been admitted to hospital and then stopped all communication with the prospective renters.

The landlord has not returned the funds and has refused to engage with the people who are asking for return of their funds - which in all cases is over £1,000. In all of the cases that Citizens Advice Sutton are aware of, the landlord used the same address – with an SM1 postcode. 

The ‘landlord’ is only claiming to be offering a room in a shared house and the rules that apply to landlords about protecting the deposits of tenants (opens in new window) are unfortunately not applicable to people renting out rooms in their own home.

Citizens Advice Sutton has advised the affected people on small claims, reporting the matter to the police and to SpareRoom. They have also spoken to SpareRoom who removed the landlord from their website, but it now appears that the scammer is now advertising the room on the Gumtree website.

Citizens Advice Sutton can help people with small claims, but know from experience, that enforcing judgement in these situations is not always possible.

SpareRoom provides useful advice to people seeking to rent a room (opens in new window) on how to minimise the risk of being scammed including never signing or paying for accommodation without first seeing the accommodation and checking the landlord's identification.