General | Lush Dream Home

IMAGINE you are a condominium owner, and your property’s management corporation (MCST) has been engaging the services of two administrators, two technicians and some cleaners for the estate.

You cheered when the government announced the Jobs Credit scheme earlier this year, thinking the savings will go to your MCST.

Well, think again. Like the MCST of Bayshore Park, a condominium on the East Coast, you may well find that the payout from the Jobs Credit scheme has gone – not to your MCST – but to the managing agent hired by your MCST to manage the payroll of condo employees.

At Bayshore Park, its MCST is now embroiled in a dispute with its former managing agent, CKH Strata Management, over a Jobs Credit payout worth $10,000 to $15,000 for the qualifying period from last October to June this year.

Some companies that engage payroll agents also face similar problems. Continue reading →

Rental scam targets potential tenants

Posted on 18 Aug 2009 | Comments Off

Michelle Jonasson-Jones, a Silver Spring, Maryland-based property agent, cautions potential tenants about a rental scheme making the rounds online that has caught the attention of the FBI.

Ms Jonasson-Jones said that she has had her listings for rental properties ’stolen’ and relisted under a different name and a lower price, usually on Craigslist. The impostors send prospective tenants an ‘application’ and ask for their personal and financial information.

They tell prospective renters that the owner is working overseas and is unavailable to show the house.

‘It used to be they were scamming the owner; now they’re scamming the tenants,’ she said.

Wendy Dufford, an intelligence analyst for the FBI in Columbia, South Carolina, wrote an article for the bureau’s website after the South Carolina Continue reading →