1 month ago
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Stakeholders are advocating the regularisation of location rent charges successful the existent property assemblage amidst arbitrary hikes by immoderate overzealous landlords, which is making beingness uncomfortable for tenants successful the country.
Currently, tenants are forced to carnivore the further burdens of bureau fees, caution fees, attraction fees, work charges, and inflated charges from committee agents, which present scope from 25 to 30 per cent of the yearly rent.
These costs devour a important stock of household incomes, forcing galore residents to relocate to suburbs oregon distant villages wherever cheaper accommodation is disposable for rent.
The effect is longer arsenic commuting done this uncharted territory connected regular ground has reduced productivity, diminution wide prime of beingness and equine fiscal strains and burdens connected budgets and income.
The lack of rent power mechanisms and effectual regulatory oversight person enabled arbitrary rent hikes and exploitative practices successful the spot market, worsening inequality and fuelling societal challenges specified arsenic homelessness, poorness and societal exclusion.
Stakeholders judge that, residential landlords, if near unchecked, are determined to spiral rents beyond power specified that the imbalance volition adjacent propulsion rents adjacent higher and worsen affordability and lodging situation for Nigerians.
Similarly, the further shocks of rental outgo has enactment unit connected disposable and shoestring budgets of families who trust connected monthly and regular wages for endurance hence arbitrary increments volition permission a protracted situation for the lodging sector.
Speaking to a Landlord successful the Ojodu Berger country of Lagos, Dipo Karounwi, a retired civilian servant who built a humble two-storey location aft decades of savings, said taxation threats and different reforms successful the lodging assemblage felt similar a trap, adding that helium spent 5 years gathering his house.
He said, “Tenants deliberation landlords are rich, but they don’t cognize the outgo of cement, the changeless repairs, and the crushed taxes radical cod yearly. Now the authorities says I indispensable insure the house, and astatine the aforesaid time, they privation to modulate rent and marque tenants wage 3 months’ rent? How volition we survive? Banks don’t wait. Contractors don’t wait.
For Kemi Ajibade, a Secondary schoolhouse teacher successful Meiran country of Lagos, she said: “I gain N120,000 a month,” complaining bitterly to LEADERSHIP, but my landlord asked for N800,000 for a two-bedroom flat. I had to get from friends and our cooperative savings to wage rent.
“It astir broke me. If the authorities tin assistance america modulate the actions of unscrupulous landlords and property agents successful conscionable 3 months, it volition beryllium overmuch amended for us.”
For Lagos tenants, paying 1 to 2 years’ rent upfront has been a longstanding nightmare. It locks galore families retired of decent homes, traps others successful cramped apartments, and forces immoderate into indebtedness spirals.
Advocacy groups person agelong argued that specified practices are exploitative successful a metropolis wherever lodging is scarce and incomes are meagre. They accidental the projected Lagos Tenancy Bill is simply a long-overdue correction.
Earlier, the Lagos State House of Assembly reviewed a broad tenancy measure that seeks to overhaul rent postulation practices, modulate the operations of property agents, specify the rights and responsibilities of landlords and tenants, and streamline tenancy quality resolution.
The projected legislation, titled, ‘A Bill for a Law to Regulate the Relationship Between Landlords and Tenants, Including the Procedure for the Recovery of Premises successful Lagos State, and for Other Connected Matters,’ is acceptable to repeal the Tenancy Law Cap. T1, Laws of Lagos State 2015. Under the bill, it would beryllium unlawful for a landlord oregon cause to request from a sitting tenant much than 3 months’ rent successful beforehand for a monthly tenancy, oregon much than 1 twelvemonth for a yearly tenancy, careless of the tenancy’s archetypal terms
Speaking connected the interaction of taxation threats connected landlords, the contiguous past president of NIESV Lagos chapter, Gbenga Ismail, noted that, for galore Landlords successful Lagos and immoderate different parts of the country, they spot rental income arsenic a signifier of status security. The lump-sum rent postulation system, often 1 oregon 2 years paid successful advance, provides a cushion against Nigeria’s volatile economy, wherever ostentation erodes the worth of monthly rents and irregular income flows marque semipermanent readying difficult.
He explained that by stripping that distant with taxes volition further erode vacancy and location availability arsenic this is expected to compound much woes for tenant seeking accommodations.
Also speaking to LEADERSHIP, CEO of Greenchell Homes and Property, Ezekiel Oke warned that, the thought of punitive taxes sounds good, it protects lives and property, but warned that the econ...
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