Lagos incentivises property owners with 15% discount on land use charge

…maintains charge at 0.076% of property value for owner occupiers

The Lagos State government has offered 15 percent incentive to property owners in the state who pay their land use charge (LUC) as required by an extant law guiding property ownership in the state.

The 15 percent discount, however, comes with a proviso which is that there is voluntary compliance to the law and also the property owner must make payment early enough before an enforcement.

Abayomi Oluyomi, the state’s Commissioner for Finance, who made this offer at a Parkview Residents’ Association General Meeting in Ikoyi, explained that the state needs that payment which is a form of property tax aimed to support the state’s infrastructure development.

The commissioner explained further that they were making the appeal for the LUC payment as a response to rising concerns over property fraud which has cost the state an estimated N1.27 trillion over the past five years.

Meanwhile, the state has not yet announced changes in the value of the charge for various categories of houses in the state. For instance, for residential property owners who live in their properties as landlords without tenants (owner-occupiers), the charge remains 0.076 percent of the value of the property.

For this category of property owners, according to former commissioner for finance in the state, Akinyemi Ashade, the annual fee is 60 percent of the house value multiplied by 0.076 percent.

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“This means that for a house that is valued at N20 million, the fee is 60 percent of N20 million which givesN12 million. When this is divided by 0.076 percent (0.076% of N12million), it gives N9,120 per annum which is further divided by 12 to give N760.00 per month,” he explained.

Even at that level, Oluyomi lamented that compliance level was very low, especially at the highbrow locations, disclosing that, in a bid to increase compliance, the state government has employed 500 ad-hoc staff to raise awareness, starting with major areas like Lagos Island, Victoria Island, and Eti-Osa.

“So far, only eight out of about 200 estates in the axis have been visited, but efforts are ongoing to cover more areas before the year ends,” he said, warning that if property owners continued to refuse compliance, the state government will publish names of defaulters.

“The state also plans to collaborate with professional bodies and financial stakeholders to host workshops on the LUC, aiming to make voluntary compliance more widespread before resorting to legal enforcement,” he assured.

On the flipside, the state government had, earlier in the year, announced that it generated N300 million from the same land use charge and this was within the first four months of 2024.

Ope George, the state’s commissioner for economic planning and budget, disclosed this while presenting the scorecard of his ministry at a ministerial press briefing to mark the one year of Babajide Sanwo-Olu’s second term in office.

With this, George hoped that the N700 million projection from LUC in the state’s 2024 budget was achievable.

The Land Use Charge is an initiative of former Governor Akinwunmi Ambode which was, at the time, a subject of controversy, hence it did not see the light of day. But in 2020, under the current governor, the state’s House of Assembly amended the Land Use Charge (LUC) Law 2018.

Under the law, as amended, property owners are liable to pay Land Use Charge in respect of any taxable property.