The
Nigerian housing market to all intents and purposes is an evolving market. It
is evolving within an unstructured framework as there are no real working laws
and regulations to cover the whole property industry. The few laws and
regulations that have been put in place are not strictly enforced with no
proper monitoring structure in place. I guess if we were to analyse this
industry properly we will find that the problems with the property and building
industry as with a lot of other industries is largely due to the lack of
importance placed on legislation, weak enforcement and the mindset of the people.
I believe that if these can be taken care of, then we will see proper working
structures enhancing and growing the property market.
In the
UK, before you do anything, there are laid down processes to follow and swift
penalties if these are breached. Everyone there knows this, the laws are
available and known to all, builders, artisans and users all have a duty to
understand the law before they start work. The Developer and Estate Agent have
a duty to let the client know what their rights are and how they are covered by
their purchase. Everything is transparent and regulated from the price of
building materials, salaries and house prices. House prices abroad in a certain
area and of a certain size commands roughly the same price in sales and rent despite
the finishing and decoration, but here in Nigeria, it is not unusual to find a
three bedroom apartment in Lekki1 selling for N50m and a similar apartment next
door asking for N70m because the
landlord used Dulux paint! As there are
so many ”developers” and landlords now in the property market who were
previously into other professions but have some money in the bank and want to
maximise their income, the property market seems to be the most lucrative at
present. There is a lack of adequate training for many of these new fortune
seekers who do not know how to select Surveyors, Architects and builders or
know the difference between them. As a result we have some terribly built
properties on the market that are sold to innocent investors who sooner or later
will count their losses or spend many more millions bringing the property up to
some decent liveable standard. In some unfortunate circumstances, these
properties are rented out for two years or more and the tenants left to do all
the repair works. The Lagos Tenancy Law has provisions to protect tenants from
unscrupulous landlords, but not many tenants are still aware of this or how to
start the legal process.
Many
countries like America, Asia, Dubai, parts of Europe and the UK have gone
through their own housing boom and crash and have developed robust systems for monitoring
and controlling their systems. Maybe we need to go through our own unique mistakes
to learn what works for us instead of just copying and pasting their own
structures which are so inherently different from ours.