Why you should not pay outside the platform

What you give up

A payment made off the platform is not on the record. There is no receipt held by anyone other than the two of you, nothing tied to a tenancy, and nothing for a support officer to look at when a dispute arrives.

The platform's own description of the signal is blunt: off-platform payment removes every protection the tenancy has.

How the request usually arrives

It is rarely presented as a demand. It is a discount for paying by mobile money, an account that is "having problems", a landlord travelling, or an urgent deadline that means the normal route will not do.

• A different account name from the verified one
• Urgency attached to the payment method rather than the property
• A request to pay before a viewing or before an agreement exists
• Rent far below the area, which is how an advance-fee approach attracts enquiries in the first place

If you are asked

A tenant reporting that they were asked to pay off-platform raises a signal rated critical. A single critical signal is enough to put the case in front of a person on its own.

1. 1Do not send anything.
2. 2Ask for the request in writing on the platform. A legitimate landlord has no reason to refuse.
3. 3Raise a complaint from your dashboard. "A payment or deposit" is a supported target.
4. 4Keep the evidence — screenshots, the account details you were given, the timing.

If you have already paid

Raise the complaint anyway, and say what you paid, when, and to which account. It goes into a case history that cannot be edited afterwards, which matters if the dispute runs on.

Domicium cannot reverse a payment made outside the platform. Money that left your account through mobile money or a bank transfer is a matter for your provider, and possibly for the police. What the platform can do is act on the account and record what happened.