The National President, Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers, Mr. Bode Adediji, has said the Lagos State Tenancy Law will not work because of insufficient housing units and inadequate infrastructure.

Adediji, who spoke at an interactive session with journalists on Saturday, asked the government to muster the same political courage it used in promulgating the law to produce more houses for the people.

He argued that as long as the problem of insufficient housing units persisted, there would be a serious mismatch between demand and supply, which would translate into high rents.

The NIESV president said, “I say emphatically that the Lagos Tenancy Law will be inoperable. The thing the government can do is to combine this law with massive production of houses.

“It is not the first time in the history of Lagos that a rent edict or law will be enacted. For as long as problem of insufficient houses persists, there will be a mismatch between demand and supply, translating into high rental prices.”

“The only solution is for the government to create an enabling environment to produce more houses and government itself should be directly involved in the production of houses as the state had been doing in the past,” he added.

Adediji said because as long as there were shortages of housing units, landlords would continue to dictate to the tenants.

“Today, what we will be saying is this: I have this house for rent, but if you say you want to rent as canvassed by people in government, go and rent from the government,” he said.

The realtor said the exclusion of some areas from the operations of the law made it look selective; arguing that house owners across the state went through the same process to build their houses.

Source: Punch/Simon Utebor