As Nigeria turns 60 after her glorious independence in 1960 from her colonial master, it’s pertinent for the government to have a look into the criminality being perpetuated in the housing sector, with a focus on how house agents and developers defraud home seekers in Nigeria. There are tons of reported cases of agents defrauding residents seeking accommodation in recent time and the scenarios of the remorseless agents collecting rents from two or more persons for the same house remains one of the criminal acts on the rise.
In February 2019, Stella Enenche of a national newspaper reported that many FCT residents have been duped in the course of house letting transactions. In her report, a victim (name withheld) recounted hid ordeal; “When my rent expired in my Maitama apartment and I needed to move to a new place because I couldn’t afford the N1.2 million rent any longer, I contacted this fellow who I met a few months earlier at a friend’s child’s dedication.
“He told me he was an estate agent and said he could secure accommodation in any part of Abuja of my choice and he even took me to his supposed office; we concluded talks and I told him how much I could raise. I finally credited his account with the sum of N600,000 after he alerted me of a two-bedroom apartment in Ludge ( A suburb along Abuja international airport road) which he said the whole arrangement was on a first-come, first-served basis. After payment, he issued receipts and told me that I could move into my new apartment in two weeks because the landlord needed to fix something in the house.
“Two weeks later when I went to the house, I discovered that another tenant had already moved into the apartment. I later gathered that the agent had collected different sums of money from four tenants for the same apartment.
“I reported the matter to the police but there was no headway. I had to go and stayed with my younger sister because my Maitama apartment had already been given out to the new tenant since I had already told the landlord that I would be moving out.
“I think the government should look for a way to check these fraudsters who parade themselves as house agents. They are really causing a serious problem in the housing market”
As reported, another victim named Godsent Etim, recalled how an agent took him to a new property which was still under construction, saying there were some rooms available for rent and how he paid for the apartment and the agent told him that it would be ready in a month.
“He handed my receipt over to me and even my supposed house key. By the time I was ready to move into the apartment, I discovered all the rooms in the compound had been occupied and that the supposed agent was fake. I tried his numbers they were no longer reachable. I had no choice but to let it pass. I have learned my lesson; now I deal directly with the owner of the property.”
One Yakubu Grace also shared her own experience of how she was duped by a fake estate agent, recalling how her friend introduced her to an agent in Karu Site where she gave the agent specifications of what she wanted.
“He called a few days later to say he had got a place for me to rent but the landlord was insisting on two years’ rent payment which was N500,000. Initially, I refused to pay because I felt two years advance payment for a self-contained apartment was not too tidy for me but he latter convinced me and I reluctantly paid the money into his account. That was the last time I ever heard from him,” she said.
Similarly, in 2017, another national newspaper reported that the Police in Lagos arrested a man for duping people desperately in search of accommodation. It was filed that the operatives attached to the Force Criminal Investigation Department, Alagbon, Lagos, effected the arrest of the property developer for allegedly defrauding over 300 house seekers.
In the report, “the suspect according to the victims, allegedly used various names and conniving with over 20 house agents to dupe them of over N50 million. According to them, the property developer and his wife renovated three houses in the Iponri, Aguda, and Coker- Orile areas of Lagos state which they allegedly used in defrauding victims.
The story narrates that “the chief executive officer of the International Centre For Human Rights Non-Violence and Safety ICHR , Barr. Ene Sarah Unobe , in a petition to the Deputy Inspector General of Police on behalf of the victims, urged the police to thoroughly investigate the matter, adding that the scam involved a syndicate which specialised in defrauding house seekers in the state.”
Sometime in May, a news report also had it that an estate agent named Lateef Balogun allegedly swindled 60 unsuspecting home seekers in Lagos State, western Nigeria. According to the story, the 60 lost N10 million to Balogun.
The report states that “they paid money ranging from the sum of N60,000 to N420,000 to a company, Balat Construction Company, which is being run by Balogun.
“Some people paid N420,000 for a two-bedroom flat, some paid N200,000 for a mini flat, while others paid N110,000 for a self-contained apartment.
“While giving a breakdown of the number of people that were allegedly swindled by Balogun, Mr. Roland Obinna, who paid N210, 000, disclosed that seven people paid for two-bedroom flat, 30 people paid for a mini flat and 15 others paid for a room self-contained apartment.
“Some of the victims who spoke with our reporter appealed to the Lagos State Commissioner for Police Mr. Umar Manko to assist so that Balogun, who is now at large, would be brought to justice and their money recovered.
“When the reporter visited the house on Wednesday, the wife of Alhaji Omitogun, the landlord of the house, said that Balogun usually brought the victims to the house around 10 p.m. and did not allow them to talk with tenants in the house.”
For home seekers’ education, agents expressed divergent views on the criminality experienced in house letting in Nigeria. Victor Ezeh, president of Property Limited, made it know to Businessday that there were categories of agents in the FCT, ranging from roadside, freelance, and others.
As reported, he said, “Some of us have our offices in small shops and all. We advertise online. Some of our clients see our adverts online and call us. One of the major challenges we have is that there are fake agents in the system. I know someone that has collected house rent of a prospective tenant, instead of remitting to the landlord, he made away with the money and by the time the prospective tenant got to know about it, it was too late. The police went after him for some time, but he was apprehended.
“The fake ones are affecting our business because they are not giving us a good image by the way they operate. They don’t only defraud clients, some of them defraud landlords, there are cases where landlords will entrust a property into the hands of an agent with the agreement that the agent will deliver but they(fake agents) will deviate from such agreements. They will put the money in their pockets rather than remitting to the owner of the house.
“This act has now made most of the landlords not to give their properties to agents; .they would rather advertise vacancy of their property by themselves with their phone numbers”, he said.
As Nigeria continues to battle with armed robbery, terrorism, and other acts of criminalities, it’s of great importance to find a lasting solution to the criminality perpetuated against home seekers by agents and developers. This has become a challenge that tenants and some landlords are looking for ways of bridging the third-party method just to avoid the agents. What they do is keep surveillance on the community and anytime a property is constructed, they already know the owner and corner them to manage it for them.
This illicit activity of some agents must be properly tackled to bring sanity and trust in the Nigerian housing sector and ease in home letting as the nation keeps aging.
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