Immediate past Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, on Thursday 8 February called for the review of tenancy laws in the country that would mandate landlords to collect rents monthly.
The former Lagos state governor stated this in Lagos during the launch of his book titled: “Nigerian Public Discourse: The Interplay of Empirical Evidence and Hyperbole”.
Fashola maintained that advance payment of rent, up to three years or more, was overwhelming tenants. He said that many houses are empty due to the way rents are being payed.
The former minister charged other states to copy the tenancy bill passed by the Lagos State House of Assembly in 2011 which criminalized the collection of rent over one year in advance from a new tenant.
He stressed further, “I think as I’ve argued that we can look at housing not only from ownership and construction but also rental. How many houses are empty and unoccupied? Why are they empty? Why are they not occupied? Some of the reason is because of the way we collect rent. That is not the only reason.
“But if you do not understand how dramatic and painful that three-, four, or five-year rent has become to our nation, we have not consciously done anything to it except perhaps in Lagos by passing rent control law. And I think that instead of just complaining about housing every state House of Assembly did something that brought down that pain.
Fashola who decried the level at which tenants are compelled by some landlords to pay two, three years advance payment for rent, said that there was need to bring such payment to six month or even on a monthly basis.
“We bring it down from three years to one year? Can we hopefully bring it down to six months? Can we let it coincide with when people get paid at the end of the month,” he added.
