Landlords and tenants

The chicken and egg relationship between landlords and tenants pre-supposes that each is as important as the other or that, at least, they are or should be mutually beneficial.

However, low home ownership level estimated to be a little above 10 percent and a yawning housing demand-supply gap have placed a feeling of superiority in the landlord who, more often than not, carries this feeling to an embarrassing level, treating the tenant as a captive.  

A 2009 report on the ‘State of the Housing Market in Lagos’ published by Pison Housing Company, reveals that over 60 percent of Lagos residents live in rented accommodation, spending about 50 percent of their monthly income on house rent.

This is not an isolated case because many residents of the major cities in Nigeria, especially those in the Federal Capital Territory(FCT) Abuja, have tells of woe to tell about their  plight in the hands of landlords who are generally described as insensitive, inconsiderate and exploitative.

Frequently, landlords and tenants quarrel over sundry issues including inability to pay rents on the part of the tenants and/or landlords’ high-handedness and near-impossible demands. Some of these quarrels often lead both parties to court cases which, rather than improve their relationship, worsens it and leads to quitting the tenant from the house.

Experts in this field, however, advise that landlords and tenants should not go to court to settle a dispute or disagreement over house rent or poor attitude of one towards the other.

Valentino Buoro, the president of Landlords and Tenants Rights Initiative, a Lagos-based non-government organization (NGO), says the parties to such disagreement or dispute should settle it within themselves.

Buoro, a lawyer, notes that some landlords normally take their tenants to court to recover their property and/or outstanding rent (if any) while some tenants visit the court to seek protection from unjust treatment from landlords.

When Lagos State government in August 2011 came up with its Tenancy Law, the intension was to protect tenants from exploitation by landlords. The law provides that it is unlawful for any landlord or his agent to demand or receive more than one-year rent from a new tenant. It also stipulates that it is unlawful and criminal for a landlord or his agent to demand or receive from a sitting tenant, rent in excess of six months in respect of any premises which means that those who are already tenants are not expected to pay more than six months in advance to their landlords.

The law places a fine of N100,000 or three years imprisonment on any landlord or new tenant who pays in excess of one year and N100,000 or three months imprisonment for any landlord who fails to issue a receipt to a tenant for payment of rent.

In all circumstances, Buoro counsels further that “as much as practicable, landlords should not take their tenants to court and vice versa”, insisting that there are more viable options for settling any dispute or disagreement between these parties.

According to him, landlords and tenants should always see their relationship as those of husbands and wives and therefore, should not take one another to court. He noted that most of the landlords–tenants quarrels relate to rent increase and other of variables, pointing out that there are just two words that can cause this quarrel namely, money and attitude.

“The landlord may need more money which the tenant does not have or the landlord may not be looking for more money but the attitude of the tenant is horrible; maybe he is bringing in bad friends into the compound and/or  is not paying rents regularly”, he explained.

When disagreement arises over these factors, he stressed, the court should not be the best place to go, disclosing that here in Lagos, there are two places where people could go for mediation namely Citizens Mediation Centre and Lagos Multi-door Court House. 

The Citizens Mediation Centre is free, he said, adding that this is the place where the mediator only brings the two contending people together and settles their quarrel in a way that will be pleasant to both of them and at no cost.

The Lagos Multi-door Court House, he added, is in Lagos Island, lamenting that many people don’t even know about it. “There also, landlords are settled with their tenants. The only difference here is that any settlement agreement signed is taken to a high court judge who is dedicated to the multi-door house. Such a judge is called Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) judge.

According to him, this judge endorses such agreement, making it a judgment of the Lagos High Court and any of the parties that goes back on this agreement is punished the same way a man who flouts court judgment is punished

He stressed that unilateral increase in rent is one area that has always caused conflict between landlords and their tenants, explaining that many landlords make mistakes in this. “Some of them stand up and increase their house rents simply because there is a change in their financial situation. Such landlords hardly ask themselves whether the tenants are capable of paying. The tenants might be salary-earners whose salaries might not have been increased in the past four to five years”, he said.

He informed that landlords-tenants relationship is a contract—an agreement between two people which, once they agree, before the contract is changed, both parties also have to agree again, adding that there is a law guiding landlords-tenants relationship “and that law is a peculiar kind of law that further regulates contract.

Chuka Uroko