A property fraud awareness week is to run next week between April 24 and 28.

It is the joint initiative of Anthony Gold Solicitors and website Property Tribes, and aims to promote public awareness of how to avoid being a victim of property-related fraud.

Such scams include ‘sellers’ who do not own the property; agents taking deposits for non-existent tenancies; rent-to-rent and sub-letting scams; and massive returns being promised for investments in property that will never materialise.

Vanessa Warwick, founder of Propertytribes, said: “This is a community-generated initiative to assist with creating awareness of fraudulent activities in property where people can potentially lose life-changing amounts of money, with very limited forms of redress.”

Property Fraud Awareness week will feature videos, articles and case histories on the Property Tribes website (http://www.propertytribes.com/) specially commissioned from Anthony Gold (http://www.anthonygold.co.uk/) identifying how the scams work and what people can do to protect themselves from becoming a victim.

The week’s content is as follows:

Monday: Psychology of scams, with David Wedgwood

Tuesday: Property investment and mentoring scams, with Clifford Tibber

Wednesday: Rent to Rent scams, with David Smith

Thursday: Identity theft scams, with Beth Holden

Friday: Lettings agent scams, with David Smith.