Staying safe
Property fraud in Sri Lanka follows a small number of patterns. Knowing them is most of the defence.
Before you part with any money
See it before you pay anything
Never transfer money to hold a property you have not stood in. This is the single most common way people lose money, and there is no version of it that is safe.
Check the deed against the person
Ask to see the deed and confirm the name on it is the person you are dealing with. A genuine seller expects this question and has the answer ready.
Be careful with an unusually cheap property
A price well under everything else in the same suburb is the oldest bait there is.
Do not pay a "reservation fee" to somebody you have not met
There is no legitimate step in a Sri Lankan property purchase that requires one.
Keep it on the record
Messages sent through Keyhouse stay here, and both sides keep a copy — including if one of you later blocks the other. That is deliberate: a conversation you can produce later is worth having.
What we do at our end
Advertisers are identified
Owners and agents verify an NIC or business registration before a listing goes live.
A person reads every listing
Before it appears, not after somebody complains.
Duplicates are merged
The same property advertised twice by two agents becomes one listing, so the results show what is actually available.
Report anything
You do not need an account to report a listing. If somebody is advertising a property that is not theirs, we want to hear it from anybody who spots it.