Man handed €2,700 fine for forging rental contracts on property he did not own

A man was fined €2,700 after admitting to forging rental contracts on a property which he didn’t own in a box-ticking exercise for Identità applications. 

The accused, Alan Bonnici, was suspected of forging registrations on a Qormi property by the Housing Authority (HA). The suspicion prompted the authority to inspect the site in question in order to confirm whether the property was being rented out. 

In fact, the HA found that the property was not being rented, as it was privately owned. After contacting the owner of the site, the authority learned that the property in question had no ties to Bonnici or the people it was leased to. 

The property was subject to two contracts registered to six to eight people, as the building was rented as shared spaces. 

It resulted that Bonnici had been using the property to forge rental contracts despite the fact that he did not own it, as the tenants lived elsewhere. By doing so, Bonnici was simply using the property address to fill out Identità applications. 

With the evidence in hand, the HA proceeded to ask the police to bring Bonnici to court, where after he was arraigned, he denied the charges. However, he admitted to the charges in the next sitting, as he was fined €2,700.

Bonnici was prosecuted by the police, with assistance from the Enforcement Unit within the HA.