SINGAPORE, Aug 9 — A 58-year-old landlady convinced 14 people to rent her Housing and Development Board (HDB) flat even though the unit had been rented to someone else or HDB had not approved the property’s rental.

Between 2020 and 2023, Santa Maria Michele Theresa cheated her victims — all foreigners — of more than S$63,000. Most of the would-be tenants never got to move into the residences she offered.

The Singaporean had been arrested and was on bail for some of the cheating offences. Instead of reflecting on her wrongdoing, she continued to cheat more people of their money while on bail by making them believe that she would lease her HDB unit to them.

Yesterday, she pleaded guilty to five charges of cheating and was sentenced to 15 months’ jail. Another 10 similar charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.

What happened

Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Kelly Ng said that Theresa was the owner of a HDB flat, but did not live in it.

HDB had granted her approval to rent out the home for three years: Between March 2018 and 2019, January and December 2020, and October 2021 and October 2022. She also sought approval to do so between January and September 2023, but HDB rejected this.

Theresa listed the property on several online sites such as Gumtree, Carousell and PropertyGuru, and advertised that she was leasing the flat between 2019 and 2023.

When a prospective tenant approached her, they would come to an agreement on a monthly rent and she would ask for a few months of rental fees in advance to serve as a security deposit.

She would then sign a tenancy agreement with her victims, making them believe that they would be the tenants of her flat.

However, the unit was either rented to other people or HDB did not give her the approval needed to lease the unit.

Theresa would then find various excuses to avoid handing over the keys, such as blaming it on delayed renovation works and not getting the right approvals from HDB.

In some cases, she also convinced her victims to give her more money, claiming that she would reduce the rent in return, or that she needed the money urgently for a family member who was having some "medical issues”, DPP Ng said.

One of Theresa’s victims, a 33-year-old from India, had approached her to rent the flat in December 2019 and paid four months of rent in advance.

This was on top of a security deposit because Theresa said that she needed the money to pay her income tax "urgently”, DPP Ng said. In exchange, Theresa promised to reduce the victim’s monthly rental fees.

The victim told Theresa that she feared never receiving the keys to the flat. However, Theresa assured the victim that she would be able to move in on Jan 1, 2020, so the victim handed over S$5,800 and signed a tenancy agreement.

However, when the victim visited the flat on Jan 1, she found it to be "in an unsatisfactory condition, different from the photographs in the online listing,” DPP Ng said.

After speaking to the victim, Theresa suggested that they call off the tenancy agreement and handed a cheque for the deposit given. However, the cheque bounced.

The victim made a police report on Jan 16, 2020. She also obtained an order from the Small Claims Tribunal to get back the money.

Of the S$63,341.40 she cheated her 14 victims, Theresa paid back S$20,174.40.

Deterrence for scams needed

Theresa was previously fined S$14,000 for failing to pay her domestic worker six months of pay.

However, both the prosecution and defence agreed that this should not be taken into consideration during sentencing since it was different from the cheating charges.

DPP Ng sought a sentence of 16 to 20 months’ jail, highlighting Theresa’s long offending period between 2019 and 2023.

She noted that Theresa would pull at the heartstrings of her victims to convince them to hand over more money, such as by claiming a family member was facing medical issues and that she had committed more than half of the charges while out on bail.

However, Theresa’s lawyer pleaded for mercy, adding that Theresa is unable to reoffend when she is out of jail since her flat has been put out for sale.

District Judge Prem Raj said that with an increase in rental scams online, there is "clear public interest in deterring rental scams”.

"The subject of the cheating offences are housing, not concert tickets or luxury watches. It is one thing to (cheat people of) a counterfeit luxury watch, but another thing to cheat a person of their housing,” he added.

"The offences are clearly deliberate and premeditated... this is a case of a serial offender.”

For each charge of cheating, Theresa could have been jailed for up to three years or fined, or both. — TODAY