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Latest post on 30 October 2014 - 15:19

This happened to a friend of ours a couple of years ago with Shamyana Entertainment services. Over 400 people were scammed, everyone filed police reports but they did nothing and I doubt there is much they can do anyway. From what I remember RERA gave the tenants 1 or 2 months to vacate the property once the landlord filed a complaint as you have to remember the landlords were also scammed as they never received the rental cheque. Our friend did the most appropriate thing and shared the loss with the tenant, only 6 months rental amount was lost, my friend took a 3 month hit with losing rent and so did the tenant and I think this was the fairest way. My advice would be to contact the real landlord IF you can find their details and try to work it out mutually the fairest possible way. Refer http://www.expatwoman.com/forum/topic193545-i-feel-so-bad-for-these-people-.aspx With all due respect, this is a different situation to the Shamyana scam for a number of reasons. Shamyana was the 'tenant' and was illegally subletting to others without the knowledge of the owner. They weren't a RERA-approved agency, they didn't have title deeds, couldn't register with Ejari, and the duped tenants all agreed to keep DEWA in Shamyana's name. The "safeguards" in place here in Dubai are ridiculously porous, but the tenants caught up in that particular scam hadn't followed any of the established rental protocol, and for that reason had very little choice but to negotiate a mutually agreeable settlement with the real landlord. I sympathize with them completely, but it was the tenant that had been scammed, not the landlord. This Max Real Estate scam is identical to two others that blew up at the same time as Shamyana (and were much, much bigger) - Marks Falcon and FHS Properties. These were RERA-registered agencies that had fully legal sublet agreements in place with the owners. As such, they were able to provide title deeds, passport copies of the owners, contracts between landlord and agent, DEWA connections in tenant's name etc etc. In other words, everything was done above board and the tenants had followed all the correct procedures. In these cases, it was the landlord that had been scammed, not the tenant. My case didn't go to court as the landlord accepted it was his responsibility for willfully entering into an binding agreement with a fraudulent company. Lots of other cases did go to court, and most tenants were allowed to stay for the remainder of their contracts at no additional charge. If DEWA is in your name, you are Ejari registered, and have copies of the contract between the owner and MAX, the title deeds, and the owner's passport, you have nothing to worry about. There are numerous Facebook pages and websites about these two scams, so I urge those affected to Google them for further advice.

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