Rent

The Nigerian pattern is advance payment, and it is the single heaviest cost of moving.

A tenant typically pays a year in advance on a residential letting, and commercial tenants are often asked for two or three. Add agency fee, legal fee and caution fee and the amount needed to take a flat is far more than the headline rent.

That is custom rather than law, and in some states the law now limits it. The Lagos State Tenancy Law 2011 makes it an offence for a landlord or agent to demand or receive more than six months rent in advance from a monthly tenant, or more than one year in advance from a yearly tenant, for premises to which the law applies. Certain high value areas were excluded from its scope, and other states have their own positions, so the rule has to be checked locally.

What the agreement says still matters most in practice. Put the amount, the period, the due date, the payment method and how increases are handled in writing, and get a receipt naming the property and the period every time you pay.

Rent increases are where most tenancy disputes begin, and Nigerian law gives the tenant more protection than most tenants realise.

A landlord cannot simply raise the rent mid term. During a fixed term, the agreed rent stands. At renewal, an increase can be proposed, and where the tenant does not accept it the landlord's route is to end the tenancy properly, not to demand more money and change the locks.

The Lagos Tenancy Law also allows a tenant to apply to court where a proposed increase is unreasonable, and courts look at rent for comparable properties in the area.

On unpaid rent, the process is prescribed and the shortcuts are unlawful. A landlord must serve the correct notice for the type of tenancy, then a notice of owner's intention to recover possession, then apply to court. Changing locks, removing a roof, cutting off water or power, or sending people to remove a tenant's belongings is unlawful regardless of how much rent is owed, and it exposes the landlord to a claim.

A tenant who cannot pay is usually better off saying so early and negotiating a documented plan than going quiet.

Three payments a Nigerian tenant makes, only one of which is rent.

Rent buys occupation. It goes to the landlord and it is the consideration for the tenancy.

Service charge pays for running the shared parts: security, cleaning, generator, water, common area repairs. It should be accounted for, and a tenant is entitled to ask what it covers and to see how it was calculated where the agreement provides for it.

Caution fee is a refundable deposit held against damage and unpaid bills. It should come back at the end of the tenancy less genuine deductions.

Bundling them into one figure is common and unhelpful. Insist on a breakdown, because a landlord who cannot separate rent from service charge cannot properly justify either, and a caution fee that was never identified as one is much harder to recover.

Rent control in the strict sense does not exist across Nigeria. Outside the specific statutory limits on advance payment and the ability to challenge an unreasonable increase, the amount is set by the market.

The advance payment limits also have gaps. They apply to premises within the scope of the relevant state law, certain areas were excluded, and enforcement depends on a tenant being willing to complain, which few are while they still need the flat.

Recovery of unpaid rent is slow. The correct notices take time and the court process takes longer, which is why landlords ask for so much in advance in the first place.

And a tenant paying a year up front carries the risk. If the landlord's title is defective, or the property is sold, or the building is demolished, the money is already gone.