The Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, on Thursday urged landlords in the country to start collecting rents in arrears beginning from today, July 6, 2018.
According to him, property owners across the country should understand the plights of the low-income earners.While advocating the payment of rents after each month, as against what is obtainable across the country currently, the minister appealed to homeowners to be considerate.He argued that salary earners, who could afford to pay rents, were not receiving their salaries in advance, but in arrears.
He recommended that there should be a landlord-tenant-employer’s relation, whereby the landlord reaches an agreement with the tenant’s employer to ensure the rent is deducted on a monthly basis from the tenant’s salary.
Fashola said, “If you ask me to go and bring in advance one year’s rent from what I’m going to earn monthly in arrears, how feasible is that?
“Even my salary as a minister is paid at the end of every month, not even at the beginning; then you the landlord is now asking me to bring next year’s salary, and we’re complaining that there’s corruption.
“I tried to intervene as a governor, passing the resolution to our own council in Lagos then, but the outcome was not peaceful, because there were landlords in our midst.”The minister made it clear that he was not pleased with the practice of advance rent payment, arguing that all the developed economies Nigeria was being compared to were not collecting one year’s rent in advance.
“Those who get paid weekly, pay their rents weekly; those who get paid monthly, pay monthly rents,” Fashola stated.
According to him, the masses, unlike the well to do in the society, cannot afford to pay their house rents in advance.