Shanghai Landlords, Rent and Deposits
A guest post by my good friend Hide who went through some ordeals getting his deposit back. It includes some useful tips on how to secure your deposit before you leave your Shanghai apartment.
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Author Hide
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Are you going to stay in Shanghai city?
If so, you should watch out for a “disease” rampant in the area.
Nowadays there is a tendency that Shanghai landowners don`t pay you back a deposit when you leave an apartment.
It is unbelievable that everyone in the city connives at those embezzlement.
They will apply a variety of tactics, either switching off their mobile phones, not answering your calls, tell you that they are outside Shanghai so they are not available etc, all for evading their responsibility- paying back your full deposit.
Therefore as a result, you will end up loosing the deposit because you have to leave there anyway for your next busy life.
In order to get your deposit back without such troubles, please keep in mind the following before you decide to leave an apartment,
- Never say to your landowners that you have to go back to your home country. Instead you better say you decided to move to your friend`s apartment in “Shanghai city”.
Let him know that you still have plenty of time to chase for your deposit.
- Before you sign a contract with your landowner, carefully look at the contract whether it clearly mentions about details of a penalty and a deposit amount he or she pays back to you, “EVEN” when you must leave “before” duration of your stay you set previously with your landowner”.
And “Add one sentence specifically that a landowner must pay back your deposit for example “one week” before your leaving date, otherwise some sort of penalty occurs.
- Get not only their telephone number but also their home address phone number so that you can chase them when something unpleasant like this happens.
Hope you can leave for your country with a good memory of your china stay in your heart ! Do you have this kind of experience in Shanghai or any other cities in China? Please share.
Posted
Sunday, November 5th, 2006 at 1:42 am,
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November 22nd, 2012 12:55
Great advice indeed! Yes., sadly there are lots of crooked landlord here but more in the lower end housing sector. Another piece of advice is to meet with your landlord before the last month of your rental to work out the departure date and go through the property to see any damage and check their level of anxiousness about the return of the deposit. You should have a Chinese friend or colleague with you who can start building a relationship with the landlord so that they know if you leave your friend or colleague will be following up on your behalf. If things don’t go well then at least you have your last month’s rent to bargain with. If they say they will stop you moving out call their bluff. In fact you can do a runner without alerting the guards by moving things out slowly or getting a small van to look like you are having a delivery when in fact you are leaving. Hope these tips help too. All the best. Adrienne Farrelly, Shanghai Properties