To ease the yearly tension that tenants pass through in the expensive Federal Capital Territory, the Senate recently passed for second reading, a bill seeking to regulate rent payment in the FCT. The proposed legislation, sponsored by Senator Smart Adeyemi, specifically seeks to stop yearly advance payment of rent. It also seeks to compel landlords to collect rent from tenants monthly.
The bill titled Advanced Rent [Residential Apartments, Office Spaces, Regulation Bill, 2022 (SB. 893] seeks to regulate rent payment by tenants from one or two years in the first instance to three months, and thereafter continue on a monthly basis. In his lead debate, Adeyemi said the bill aims to cushion the effect of outrageous rent payments by residents in the nation’s capital city. He said while many residents are poorly accommodated, a lot of estate properties in Abuja city are unoccupied due to the outrageous rents placed on them.
Adeyemi further said many FCT residents find it very difficult to cope with the huge rent payments from their meagre public sector salaries. He said, “In the FCT, a single one-room apartment ranges from one million to two million naira within the city.” Yet, landlords would always insist that their tenants pay one year to two years’ rent in advance. The bill, according to him, shall protect low-income earners from any form of oppression by homeowners; adding that it will also serve as a safety net for landlords against erring tenants. The bill was subsequently referred to the Committee on Housing and Urban Development which was given four weeks to report back to the Senate in plenary.
It would be recalled that Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State had in December last year approved rent payment on a monthly basis for residents of the state. The concept, according to him, is not to punish landlords or reduce the expected revenue of the property owner. To facilitate the scheme, Lagos State government provided five billion naira to support tenants and landlords regarding rent remittance under the monthly tenancy scheme.
We support the bill on monthly payment of rent as such will minimize desperation and corruption occasioned by the burden of rent payment among low-income earners in the FCT. Rent should take into cognisance tenants’ ability to pay, not just the fat cat aspirations of landlords. As the bill raises the hope of tenants in FCT, we urge the Senate to specify implementation strategies in the bill. It would be a wasted effort to have an Act which provisions cannot be enforced.
