How to rent a flat that exists and not lose your money.
This article is about renting a flat on your own – that means you decided NOT to use the help of the agency.
You just found a perfect flat on FB. It is your #dreamflat come true. Big, located in the city centre, modern and not very expensive.
What should alarm you that this offer may not exist?
- beware of too cheap apartments – always check the average price for the flat in your city. If you don’t have such info, ask someone at the university or just make a post on FB groups. There is always someone who will help you. NOTE: apartments for Erasmus are a bit more expensive than “regular” ones. Why? Because they allow contracts for 4 months and usually are better equipped.
- refusing the possibility of seeing the flat – you have the right to visit the property. Ask if your friend may check it for you and check how the owner reacts. Most “scams” owner are claiming to be on holidays currently. If the owner agrees that most probably everything is fine.
- paying for home address- there is plenty of fake-agencies who will force you to pay upfront getting the list of addresses of available offers to rent. Don’t ever do that. It’s most probably a scam and you will get a list of unavailable flats and loose 200-300 PLN.
All checked? No suspicious actions? Great! Let’s move forward! What is to be checked also?
- Pay attention to the type of heating that is applied in the apartment – it’s important as we do have winter. Sometimes it gets really cold and believe me, you need to heat up your place. The most economical is the central heating provided by the city. It’s mostly almost unlimited. Gas heating is also really efficient but it’s more expensive – you should pay attention to not heat up too much, control it. (to not heat when windows are open, not have above 22 degrees in the flat). Electrical heating is usually expensive. Especially combines with old windows… You have to control it, even more, to not declare bankruptcy.
- Always ask for overall costs of the apartment – very often the price given doesn’t cover media costs (water, gas, healing) and Internet costs.
- Always check the location of your apartment (for example on Google maps) and communication with your university (eg. on www.jakdojade.pl )
- Remember that renting the apartment requires signing all the documents, like lease agreement or receive acceptance protocol. Make sure you have them translated to English!
Good luck and see you in Poland!
Check also: Where to live during my #erasmus_adventure
