Rental Lease Forgery in Jamaica: How Fake Tenancy Agreements Are Used to Gain and Defend Illegal Occupation

• Fake lease agreements can be used to collect deposits from multiple tenants for one property.
• Squatters have used forged leases to claim a paper right of occupation in eviction proceedings.
• Forged leases should be identifiable through signature verification and cross-checking with the owner.
• Engaging a qualified real estate agent reduces the risk of dealing with a fraudulent landlord.
• Lease forgery is a criminal offence under Jamaican law and may engage the Cybercrimes Act 2015.

A rental lease is a formal legal document that creates enforceable rights and obligations. In Jamaica, a fraudster who forges or fabricates a lease agreement uses that document for one of two purposes: either to deceive a prospective tenant into believing they have a legitimate right to occupy a property (and thereby extract a deposit or advance rent from them), or to manufacture apparent evidence of a right of occupation that can be produced to complicate an eviction or trespass proceeding. Both uses of a forged lease are criminal in nature and can cause significant harm to the legitimate owner of the property and, in the first scenario, to the tenant who relies on the false document.

The multiple-deposit scheme using a forged lease typically works as follows. A person gains access to a property — perhaps as a viewing agent for the legitimate owner, or through a temporary arrangement — and then presents themselves to multiple prospective tenants as the landlord, entering into separate lease agreements with each and collecting deposits or advance rent. When the tenants arrive to take possession, they find either that the property is already occupied by one of the other victims, or that the fraudster is unreachable and neither the lease nor the claimed tenancy is valid.

Verification and Prevention

Tenants can reduce their exposure to lease forgery by: verifying the identity of the person purporting to be the landlord against the registered title at the NLA; refusing to pay any deposit or rent before a legitimate agreement has been signed and the source of the landlord’s authority to let the property has been confirmed; and engaging a licensed real estate agent from the REB register at reb.gov.jm to conduct viewings and manage the letting process. Property owners who suspect their property is being fraudulently advertised or let should report the matter to the police and to the REB. The REB has disciplinary jurisdiction over licensed agents who facilitate fraud and can investigate complaints made at reb.gov.jm.

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