While Australia’s international student population is booming, the supply of affordable student housing has failed to keep up.
As a result, international students often face precarious, exploitative and in some cases illegal living arrangements.
One solicitor who runs the international service at Redfern Legal Centre said one in three students he sees are seeking help with tenancy issues. Students often do not know who their leaseholders are or where they live, so there is no way of getting their money back.
Students responding to a harmless-looking advertisement for a vacant house of room to rent on a housing forum or social media are often told by the “landlord” or “agent” to deposit money into a non-Australian bank account. This is supposedly to “book” the property and they keys will be mailed shortly.
Many students lose their money this way as the advertisement, landlord and property are all fake.
There are, however, some common warning signs that an advertisement for a house or room to rent may be a scam, such as the rent being impossibly cheap or a landlord/agent being unwilling to organise a property inspection.
Read the full article here (Student International News, 11 July 2019)
