Lagos govt vows to enforce monthly rental policy

The Special Adviser to Lagos State Governor on Housing, Barakat Odunuga-Bakare, said this during a media parley.

Odunuga-Bakare, who spoke on the platform of the Lagos State Real Estate Regulatory Authority in Ikeja, the Lagos State capital, said: “We all see what is being done in other climes.

“Rents are collected monthly.

“Hence, we are looking and hoping that before the end of the year, or by early next year, we will be able to implement the policy of monthly rental.

“Also, the rental would be charged according to tenants’ earnings.

“The good part about it is that we would be test-running it first within the public sector since we can ascertain how much everybody is earning, and once we see that it works in the public sector, we can now push it out to the private sector.”

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According to Odunuga-Bakare, the N5 billion allocated for the monthly rental scheme was still set aside and untouched, adding that the fact that the scheme was slow to kick off showed that the Lagos State Government was working to perfect one thing or the other.

She added: “The last administration that initiated the monthly rental scheme was coming to an end when the scheme was to be introduced.

“Now, we have a new administration and the governor wants the scheme to come into effect by the end of this year or early next year.”

Recall that in 2021, the Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, said the current rental model in which people pay yearly rent in advance to property owners has become inadequate to address contemporary realities in the housing sector, especially in cities where demand for property is high and expensive.

Sanwo-Olu advocated a monthly rental system, which, according to him, would be affordable to low and middle income earners pressured by the yearly rent obligation.

Speaking at the 10th meeting of the National Council on Lands, Housing and Urban Development held in Lagos recently, he enjoined policymakers to consider the suggestion and initiate a regulatory framework that would aid the transition to a new rental system.

He said: “In Lagos, we operate a very robust rent-to-own programme of five percent down payment and six percent simple interest rate payable over 10 years.

“We are working on another product, which is a purely rental system, where residents will pay

Lagos govt vows to enforce monthly rental policy