Rental Fraud in a Hotel: Letting Rooms Despite Fire Damage

Prohibited Subletting After Fire Incident

In the present case, Kurtz Detective Agency for Reutlingen was commissioned by a private client who owned a large commercial property and rented it to a hotel operator. After a fire had broken out on the top floor of the building, the landlord was prohibited from allowing rooms on that floor to be sublet to hotel guests or other persons. Understandably, the hotel then claimed a rent reduction from our client, and he agreed without objection. A few weeks later, however, the landlord received concrete indications that the affected floor was nevertheless still being let to guests – while the hotel continued to benefit from the rent reduction.

 

To verify this suspicion and to obtain legally admissible proof of the rental fraud should it be confirmed, the property owner engaged our commercial investigation agency for Reutlingen (+49 711 7153 0028).

Infiltration of the Target Property Through Room Rental

During the preliminary reconnaissance of the hotel surroundings, our investigators not only assessed the observation conditions but also checked whether there were any external signs indicating that the fire-damaged floor was being rented out. However, no such clues – such as open windows or lights – could be identified. After completing this preparatory stage, our private investigator for Reutlingen entered the hotel and enquired at reception, posing as a “guest”, about rooms for the coming night. He insisted on being allocated a room on the floor below the affected one, as this location appeared most likely to allow him to hear any noises from potential occupants above. To achieve this goal – and in the hope of perhaps even being offered a room on the fire-damaged floor – the detective asked to view three available rooms on different floors and was thus able to make an informed choice.

 

Back at the reception desk, the investigator noticed a notepad listing various room numbers. Behind these numbers were names, but they were written so small that the private investigator could not decipher them. Four to six of these names were written beside room numbers belonging to the fire-damaged floor. When asked whether there was a room with a view of the Achalm hill, the receptionist replied that such a view was only possible from the top floor, but that no rooms were currently available there. At that very moment, he drew a white A4 sheet from under the counter and placed it over the notepad, completely covering the room numbers and names.

Clear Indications of Continued Guest Rental

Just seconds after entering his room, the private investigator from our Detective Agency for Reutlingen unmistakably heard muffled coughing and the creaking of footsteps from the floor above. He also noted that the hotel doors and walls were very thin. Since there was a risk that conversations could be overheard from outside, the detective left the hotel whenever he needed to speak with the operations management or the client. Throughout the day, he repeatedly heard noises from the questioned floor that clearly suggested occupancy.

 

In the evening, a van with a company logo arrived in the hotel car park. Four young men in dirty work clothes got out, carried sports and day bags into the hotel and conversed in Polish. Inside, they proceeded to the top floor, split into two pairs and entered separate rooms on the “forbidden” floor. Subsequently, our corporate investigator for Reutlingen used various pretexts to move around the hotel and gather additional evidence of the illegal letting of the top floor. He clearly heard television sounds from three rooms and conversation between two or more people from another. When darkness fell, he conducted another inspection and observed light shining under the doors of three relevant rooms. From outside the building, he could also see three illuminated rooms and one dark one, in which a middle-aged man was smoking at an open window – against both house rules and fire safety regulations. The man was talking loudly with another person who must also have been in the room but was not visible from below. All relevant observations were photographically documented by our commercial investigator.

At Least Eight Overnight Guests on the Closed Floor

The following morning did not promise a pleasant start to the day for the infiltrated observer of our detective team for Reutlingen, as he had to take up a standing position overlooking the staircase from 05:30 in order to record every person descending from the top floor. Prolonged standing in the same spot ranks among the most uncomfortable tasks during surveillance operations, as it strains the feet, promotes fatigue (due to reduced blood flow to the brain) and causes back and leg pain. However, the investigator hoped for considerable activity in the stairwell as guests came down for breakfast, and thus willingly accepted the strain. Barely fifteen minutes after the start of the observation, the first sounds from above were heard: repeated floor creaks and the clicking of footsteps. Soon after came voices, the slamming and locking of doors and steps in the stairwell – the four presumably Polish workmen from the previous day were coming down. They had therefore spent the night on the prohibited floor. A quarter of an hour later, another workman with the logo of a different company emerged from the questioned floor. By 07:00, two civilians and another workman had also descended from there.

 

When there was a pause in activity above, the commercial investigator took the opportunity to make a quick inspection of the breakfast room. There, in addition to various guests from unrelated floors, he encountered two of the workmen and the two civilians from the top floor. The workmen spoke German, and their conversation clearly revealed that they would be staying another night.

A Cleaner for an Empty Floor?

After checking the breakfast room, the investigator from our private detective agency for Reutlingen resumed his observation of the stairwell but encountered no more people from the top floor. Between times, he conducted inspection rounds through the questioned floor but found no further signs of occupancy. Around 09:30, however, a cleaner entered the supposedly unoccupied floor and began cleaning the rooms. During this, the detective not only managed to look into the room above his own and discover clear evidence of recent overnight use, but also engaged the cleaner in conversation under a pretext and extracted relevant information. She confirmed that rooms on the closed floor could indeed be booked and were mostly reserved long-term by companies accommodating their employees, for instance while on site for installation or construction work. The private investigator asked specifically whether he could see a room from which one could view the Achalm hill. The lady readily unlocked two rooms that offered such a view and proudly showed him the outlook. These rooms, she said, were particularly popular and usually fully booked. They had evidently been occupied until just a few hours earlier (judging by the smell, rather just a few minutes earlier), as unmade beds and scattered clothing clearly indicated recent use.

 

Our Detective Agency for Reutlingen continued documenting the unauthorised use of the rooms over the following weeks through two further overnight stays conducted by different investigators. Ultimately, the illegal subletting – and thus the rental fraud committed by the hotel operator – was proven beyond any doubt.

All names and locations have, of course, been completely altered to ensure the protection of both client and subjects of investigation.

 

Kurtz Detective Agency Stuttgart | Germany

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Tel.: +49 711 7153 0028

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