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By Olakunle Olafioye
When Mr Jide Akinrotimi, an accountant, began the construction of his personal house almost six years ago, his dream was to have his modest project completed before moving into it.
He was, however, forced to change his plan when his landlady, sometime last year jacked up the rent for his two-bedroom apartment at Oko-Oba Agege, Lagos, from N350,000 to N600,000.
Akinrotimi said the over 80 per cent hike in rent compelled him to take an urgent decision of resolving to complete two rooms out of his three bedroom apartment which was at lintel level at Ifo, Ogun State.
“I had to rush to complete the two rooms and we moved in before Christmas last month. As God helps me, I will be working on the rest until I can complete it,” he said.
The decision to relocate to Ifo in Ogun State is never an option the father of three would take under normal circumstances.
“The challenge now is that I have to travel from Ifo to my office at Ilupeju five days a week. What this means is that I spend more on transportation in addition to the attendant stress of commuting between Ogun State and Lagos State,” he lamented.
As difficult as the decision appears to Akinrotimi, not many who found themselves in the same condition are privileged to have the opportunity of taking a similar decision.
Until last year when he relocated with his family to Alagbado area of Lagos State, Mr Austin Ikhile lived in a three bedroom apartment at Egbeda where he paid an annual rent of N480,000. According to him, he had moved from Shogunle to Egbeda almost six years earlier and started with an annual rent of N350, 000. But two increments within the period raised his annual rent to N480,000, which he paid until June 2023 when he received a notification to quit his apartment from the caretaker.
“The caretaker just came on one Saturday and gave some of the tenants notices to quit our various apartments. These affected only the old tenants. It was not much of a surprise to me because I had heard that one of the new tenants who was occupying a room and parlour self contained paid N400,000 for the apartment while I was paying N480, 000 for a three-bedroom.
“When I eventually met the landlord he opened up to me that he was not interested in ejecting me rather his intention was to increase the rent for my apartment to N800,000 and he feared that I might not be willing to pay the new rent hence his decision to serve me the notification to quit along with others. But after much pleading, he brought it down to N750,000, which I still considered too exorbitant,” he said.
Mr Ikhile later settled for a two-bedroom flat at Alagbado where he currently pays N450,000. But if the price differential between the two accomodations comes as a relief to Mr Ikhile, the advantage pales in significance as the decision comes with other challenges.
“I work at Apapa, so I have to pay more on transportation (from Alagbado) compared to when I was at Egbeda. Again, I now have to leave home earlier and return home very late,” he lamented.
A young private school teacher, Idowu Omolaja, was preparing for his wedding in 2023 when he received the sad news of 75 per cent increment in the annual rent of his mini-flat apartment at Ogba where he had paid N200,000 annually since 2021. The landlord had informed him that he would have to pay N350,000 if he was still interested in retaining the apartment. Determined not to allow the development to affect his wedding plans, he waved the issue aside until after his wedding. Before the expiration of his last rent, Omolaja said he pleaded to pay N250, 000 annually, but the landlord insisted on N350,000, an amount he claimed he could not sustainably afford.
“A friend of mine who resides at Dalemo Alakuko later informed me about a modest room and parlour self-contained apartment in his area which goes for N250,000 per year. So, I decided to settle for it. The challenge there now is that I work at Ikeja while my wife works at Ogba and because of the stress of moving between Alakuko and our places of work everyday and the high cost of transportation we have decided to go home twice a week. I stay at school from Monday to Wednesday while my wife stays with her sister. We go home on Wednesdays and return on Thursday morning and go back (home) on Fridays,” he said.
House owners are always quick to blame escalating cost of living and cost of maintenance for the hike in rent.
A house owner at Meiran area of Lagos State, Mr Latifu Ogudipe, said that his decision to increase rent is always a reflection of the economic situation in the country.
“I am sure that there are laws regulating tenancy in Lagos State. House owners cannot just increase house rent arbitrarily because the government is there to checkmate them. As a person I don’t do that. Anytime I make a decision to increase house rent I always ensure it reflects the realities in the country. For example, when I carried out a major maintenance in my house about three years ago, a bag of cement was around N3,000. If I am to carry out a similar maintenance now I will have to pay N5,000 for a bag of cement. That is a difference of over 60 per cent. So, if I collected N200,000 as yearly rent three years ago, it does not make any sense to still charge the same rent on the apartment now that a bag of cement is sold for N5,000,” he said.
Not a few tenants believe that there are more to the reasons adduced by most house owners for hiking house rents unreasonably.
They identified greed and the quest of getting extra money from agreement fees and commission from new tenants as other reasons for mindless hike of rent by most house owners. A resident of Lagos, Mr Habeeb Amodu who narrated his experience in the hand of a landlord whom he described as shylock said that he was frustrated to quit the house.
“I once lived in a house where the landlord was in the habit of raising the rent every three years. The man would just take a sample of what other landlords were collecting as rents from their tenants without taking into consideration the conditions or the facilities put in place in those houses. At the end of the day he would just come up with a notice of increment just like that,” he said.
But while the majority of house owners are said to be guilty of hiking house rent mindlessly, there are still few benevolent landlords who resist the temptation of punishing their tenants with unreasonable hikes in rent.
Mr Ayanfe Oluwadairo said that until he moved to his personal house last year, he had lived in a house where he paid the same rent for almost nine years.
He advised tenants to always take their time when searching for accomodations, saying there are a lot of good house owners who do not overburden their tenants unreasonably.
“In 2014, when I moved into the house I lived in before moving to my house last year, I paid N160, 000 annually for nine years. The landlord did not, for once, increase my rent despite the fact that other landlords around were increasing theirs indiscriminately.
“There are still good landlords who do not inconvenience their tenants. My advice is that people seeking accommodations should take their time to search for such houses. The problem with most house seekers is that they only commence their search for new accomodations when they are hard pressed by their landlords,” he said.
