Covid-19 lockdown: Tenants bemoan rent dispute with landlor
By Edith Ignokwe
Many tenants in Oshodi-Isolo Local Government Area (LGA) have expressed the agonies suffered from their landlords/landladies over their inability to settle their rents as and when due.
ECHONEWS gathered that unpaid rents have been causing faceoff between house owners who depend on the rents for their survival and their tenants who find it difficult to settle their rents due to the effect of the lockdown.
Some of the affected tenants who spoke to ECHONEWS complained that they were unable to pay their rents as their businesses and jobs were greatly affected by the Covid-19 lockdown.
A tenant at Brown Street Oshodi, a food vendor who does not want her name in print, said her landlord sold the building to another person without notifying the tenants and that the new landlord has given them a grace till September to pack out of the house.
Their agony, according to her, is how to raise money to secure new accommodation at this critical time of coronavirus when the economy is bad even though the landlord has waived their unpaid rents.
Another tenant, Shina Popoola, a private school teacher living at Mafoluku, Oshodi said he is being threatened to pack out by his landlady for owing four months’ rent.
Popoola said all his explanation to his landlady that he has not received any salary since the schools were locked down fell into deaf hears as she insisted that he should pack out of the one-room apartment.
He complained that many are facing financial challenges as coronavirus has huge impact on their incomes but many landlords and landladies do not feel concerned.
Meanwhile, in its encounter with the landlords and landladies in Oshodi-Isolo, ECHONEWS gathered that while some owners were lenient with their tenants, others insisted on “no payment no living” policy.
The landlady of 20, Aduke Thomas Street, Mrs. Alarape Jimoh said she understood the economic situation and has agreed to bear with her tenants.
She confirmed that some of her tenants whose rents have expired are finding it difficult to renew the rents because they have not been going to their places of work constantly, promising to leave them till they are able to gather the rents.
She said: “Some of my tenants’ house rents have expired while some will soon expire in few months. They have begged me to give them some times to raise the money since many of them have not been working constantly like before and I have agreed to give them time because I know that things have not been easy for many people since the coronavirus crisis broke out.”
She explained that the rent for a room apartment in her building varies from N2,500, N3,000, N5,000 per month amounting to N30,000, N36,000 and N60,000 respectively per annum, noting that some tenants are owing more than a year.
However, the landlady at 2, Femi Akinshola, Charity Oshodi, Mrs Iyabo Adebayo insisted that her debtor tenants must pack out of the house, claiming that she could no longer condole the inconveniences.
“Some of them are owing a year plus even before the Covid-19 pandemic. The one owing N54, 000 for a whole year paid for six months (N27, 000) in May and will expire this June 2020. Another one who is to pay N40, 000 per year only gave me N16, 000 to be expired the same June and they are owing electricity bills too. I want them to use the remaining six months from July to December to pack out, I am tired of their problems.”
