By Reporters
Residents of Owerri, who reside in rented apartments, have expressed serious concern over the soaring and unregulated house rents and agents’ fees in the state.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the Imo Government enacted the Rent Control and Recovery of Residential Premises Edict No. 3 of 1997 to regulate and control rent charged by landlords and the mode of recovery of rented property.
A judicial officer, who identified himself simply as Okey, said the enforcement of the edict “has suffered serious setback and not implemented“.
Okey further said that the presence of internet fraudsters had negative impact on rents because of their readiness to any amount demanded by unscrupulous landlords.
He said that the development made the fraudsters the preferred choice of tenants by most landlords in Owerri metropolis.
“This has left both the low and middle income earners in difficult situations as far as house rent in Owerri is concerned.
“Most landlords prefer the big boys,” he said, adding that property agents take advantage of the opportunity to rip off prospective tenants.
“A house built for commercial purpose is a long term investment and the return on the investment is not expected to be a one, three or four years thing.
“The land on which a house is built is also part of the investment and in the event that the landlord decides to sell the building, the price will include the value of the land.
“So, landlords should stop exploiting innocent tenants to quickly recoup the funds they spent in building their apartments,“ Okey said.
He opined that the problem of indiscriminate hike in house rent could only be addressed by getting rid of internet fraudsters, who help to inflate house rent.
An Owerri-based lawyer, Mr Chinonso Chikaire, said that property agents that are not legally registered are not known to law.
Chikaire, an expert in property law, also said that to rent or lease a property by a landlord to a tenant, either directly or through a legal representative, is recognised by law.
He regretted that the legal provision had been abused by landlords, “who prefer to work with quacks, called ‘property agents’ with no legal backing.
“This has contributed to the abuse of the extanct laws and rights of tenants as enshrined in the law,” he said.
He called for a fundamental change that would allow tenants to interface with landlords through a legal representative.
He, however, said that the law did not provide any rule for either a minimum or maximum rent for any apartment for particular period of time.
He said that the lacuna afforded landlords the latitude to negotiate rents and often hike rents without any restraint “since there is no guiding law”.
A tenant, Mr Chidi Ukandu, expressed concern over the “choking high rent” in Owerri and called for the necessary legislation to regulate rent charges in the city.
He called on the government to take measures to regulate the activities of “the so called agents” and halt the situation from getting worse.
NAN reports that a two-bedroom apartment in Owerri recently rose to as high as N700,000, while one bedroom goes for half a million naira.
In Abia, the Commissioner for Lands and Housing, Mr Chaka Chukwumerije, said that there was no legislation to guide house rent charges.
Chukwumerije said, “We don’t have any laws regulating rental prices in the state.”
He said that building of housing estates was one of the priority projects the present administration “seeks to use to drive down rent charges in the state”.
An Umuahia-based legal practitioner, Mr Chukwuemeka Nwachukwu, said that the attempt by the House of Assembly in the past to enact a law to regulate house rent did not work.
“There was a time the Abia Assembly wanted to enact a law to regulate house rent charges for two-bedroom, three-bedrom apartments and duplex .
“It didn’t work because it was intercepted by sudden increase in the cost of building materials,” Nwachukwu said.
He also said that the issue of house rent charges has been difficult to regulate “because of the steady increase in the cost of building materials, fuel and transportation”.
He said that enacting a law to regulate house rent was not feasible as long as the cost of building materials remained unregulated.
He expressed delight that accommodation in Umuahia was still affordable “because the rent charged for residential buildings depends on the facilities provided”.
Nwachukwu said: “When you come to Umuahia, you will see three-bedrom flat for N1million and two-bedroom flat for N700,000 and people will pay.
“The kind of property that goes for such charges, usually have facilities, such as water heater, POP ceiling rather than the normal ceiling.
“When the property is equipped with modern facilities, it reflects on the cost of the rent.
“The low standard ones in the village go for N30,000 a month, that is N360,000 annually for three-bedroom and N240,000 annually for two-bedroom, which is N20,000 monthly.”
He said that the house agents take as much as 20 per cent commission, instead of five per cent, especially when the rent is above N1million.
He urged the Federal Government to evolve effective strategies for reducing the price of fuel.
“If the price of fuel can be reduced to N200 or N250, the cost of goods and services, including house rent, will drastically come down,” Nwachukwu said.
Another lawyer, Mr Chijioke Emenalo, said that any legislation to regulate house rent would be ineffective because of the current economic situation in the country.
“There are laws that can be ineffective because of jurisprudential situation of the area.
“I see lots of tenants complaining and I appreciate where they are coming from but this fight should be targeted at the right source, the leaders and government, not the landlords,” Emenalo said.
He called on the government to address the issue of rent hike by providing affordable housing for the citizens and subsidise the cost of building materials.
An Aba-based media practitioner, Ifeanyi Emmanuel, said that Abia landlords were having a field day “because there is no law to check their activities”.
Emmanuel said that Aba was experiencing accommodation shortage “because businessmen eject tenants from their houses to set up their businesses”.
He advised the State Government to prohibit the irregular conversion of residential buildings to commercial purposes to check the problem.
He also called for a legislation and regulatory agency to put the activities of landlords and agents under proper check.
He advised the government to build housing estates for medium and low income earners in order to check the dearth of accommodation and exploitation of tenants by shylock landlords.
A businessman, Mr Thompson Thompson, said that some landlords collect between two and three years rent from new tenants in Abia.
Thompson called for an Act that would take care of the concerns of the suffering tenants.
He further recommended the establishment of a regulatory agency to monitor and ensure that landlords and tenants respect the guiding principles.