The Government has been encouraging the elderly to use their flat to finance their retirement. And my mother did precisely that by renting out her four-room Housing Board flat.
Through an agent from a well-known real estate agency, we found six foreign workers as tenants.
Months later, an HDB officer called and said neighbours had complained about many people going in and out of my mother's flat.
The agent went with the HDB officer to do a spot check on Sept 2.
After the spot check, the agent sent us photos to show that our flat was all right, and said that he had given the tenants a stern warning. We were thankful to him for disciplining the tenants and thought the episode was over.
On Sept 12, the HDB officer called again to say our neighbour had sent him closed-circuit television footage of the agent removing partitions about two hours before the scheduled time for the spot check, and bringing the partitions back later.
In the evening of the same day, we went to the flat to do a spot check. To our chagrin, the door lock had been changed, so we called the police.
To read more: https://www.straitstimes.com/forum/letters-in-print/protect-landlords-and-tenants-from-unscrupulous-real-estate-agents
Adapted from The Straits Times 16 September 2019