Post 30 - Never pay an apartment deposit without seeing the apartment

The housing market in Dublin is going through a difficult time at the moment because there is not enough apartments to rent. This is creating a difficult situation for whoever is currently moving to Dublin. I have been following a French community on Facebook and I can see that lots of people are struggling to find a place to live.
However it seems that people always manage to find an apartment. It is important to have a back up plan (hostel or friends...) and to be patient.

One of our candidates recently got a big problem with a landlord and I wanted to share this with you. The landlord had a place to rent online and our candidate wanted to secure this place. So he paid the deposit without meeting with the landlord or seeing the place. Then when he was supposed to get his keys the landlord told him that she was on an unexpected business trip and would only come back to Dublin the following Friday. Then she emailed him on Friday saying that she would only come back on Monday and now she has disappeared with his deposit...

We are investigating this issue and will try to help our candidate to get his money back but it seems that this is happening a lot.

Be careful who you are dealing with and never pay a deposit without meeting with the landlord and visiting the place!