Barakat Odunuga-Bakare, a lawyer, is the Special Adviser to the Lagos State governor on Housing. She is also overseeing the Lagos State Real Estate Regulatory Authority (LASRERA). In this interview with DAYO AYEYEMI, she spoke extensively about the activities of the agency in preventing and resolving cases of fraud in real estate sector; the proposed monthly rental collection and state’s mortgage system.
There have been cases of fraud in the real estate sector in Lagos State regarding how people pay money to developer but unable to access the property. How much sanitation of the industry has been done?
This is one problem that keeps reoccurring and I can tell you that the Lagos State Government through Mr Governor is not leaving any stone unturned when it comes to the issue of fraud in the real estate sector.
You know the sector is quite big and considering the housing deficit, the amount of people practising real estate is alarming. You might go out and see pepper seller saying I am an estate agent; you see a meat seller telling you that his second occupation is real estate agency. They are not licensed to practise real estate . We have a case sometime last September of one developer that collected huge amount of money in Ajao estate . The developer eloped and took away people’s money . God being so kind and the governor not leaving any stone unturned from the beginning of his administration, we were able to catch the man. He traveled out of the country and came back but was napped. As we speak right now, he is in incarceration. He had been told to pay money back to those he collected money from. And also, the said property has been taken over by the state government, and people in question have been sorted out.
So anybody that thinks he can defraud people in Lagos State and go away with their money is messing with their future.
There’s another man in Canada. He said one developer collected N20 million from him and the case went on for about three years. He wasn’t allocated any land. He later went on the social media, complaining that he was going to commit suicide if the Lagos State Government does not come to his aid. Mr Governor picked it up from the social media and sent it to me and the Commissioner for Housing.
We were able to get hold of the man within the space of one hour. We got hold of him in Canada and the said developer, and also the realtor that helped him in acquiring the said property.
I can tell you that within 48 hours, the issue was resolved. The man got allocated his parcel of land. He has also done appreciation post as well just to calm the people down.
Most people don’t know that this agency exists and that they can also come to Lagos State government for help. We are here for everybody: the landlord, tenant, developer and agent . We got involved in transaction even all the way from landlord to tenant up to five years.
Real estate developers, landlord, agent, tenant all have the right to register their transaction with the agency.
Can this agency of government help victim get the interest of money paid to developers for over two years after failure failed to honour the agreement?
This inflation thing is a global issue and not Nigeria alone, and is affecting everybody. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) is trying to come up with policies for dollar to be regularised. It›s a different amount in the morning and by the time you check back in the afternoon, it is a different amount entirely. I can tell you that things would stabilise at some points. Lagos State government can’t get involve and says how much you sell property
Can the government help to get accumulated interest rate on delayed transaction?
We cannot do anything per-se on that because it’s inflation that affects everything. It also affects our contractors as well when they got job and didn’t do it on time.
Can you put a figure to the numbers of petitions to real estate fraud in the state?
We have received well over 1,577 petitions from the inception of this agency in 2020. We have been able to resolve 1027 petitions We also have eight cases in court bordering around real estate fraud.
What is the update on monthly rental collection policy being initiated by your agency? Its implemention ought to have started last year December.
Government is continuous . If you don’t continue well that means you are going two years’ back . We all see that in the United Kingdom (UK) and United States (US) that rent is being collected monthly. We are looking forward and hoping that before the end of the year or by early next year, we will able to implement the policy of monthly rent collection. Also, it will be charged according to individuals earnings. The good part of it is that we will be test-running it with the public sector to ascertain income of everybody and once it works in the public sector, we will now push it to the private sector.
What are the challenges confronting the take-off of monthly rental payment policy in Lagos State because we learnt then that N5billion was already set aside for it?
The N5billon set aside is still there. The fact that it slowed to take off showed that we are trying to perfect one thing or the other. And also the administration wanted to come to an end as at the time it wanted to take off. Now we have a new administration and Mr governor wants it to come to effect
How would you dictate rent when prices of building materials are going up?
The forum countries you mentioned have a mortgage system.
We also have a mortgage system in Lagos State. If you want to buy any of our homes through the Ministry of Housing, you either buy outrightly or through a mortgage, and a percentage is charged depending on what you are earning. So if it can work for rent-to-own, it can also work for monthly rental collection.
What’s the relationship between your agency and Real Estate Developers Association of Nigeria (REDAN)?
We are having a fantastic relationship and collaboration.
What is your relationship with the developers in the area of regulation of their activities?
There is nothing an agency can do if it doesn’t has the law that is backing it. The present laws we have are good, but as time evolves, the laws need to evolve too. My first objective is to make sure that the laws are actually effective on ground.
I have been meeting different organisations: REDAN, ERCAN and Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) as well.
Most people don’t know we have a mortgage system as well. I have been telling them that we have a mortgage system that works and they can as well partner the Lagos state in this direction.
There is need for collaboration between public and private sectors. Lagos State government is open to do business with the public and private sectors to bridge the housing deficit in the state. We have quite a lot of people that migrate to Lagos state every year. We have about 500,000 people. The population is huge so we want to ensure that people have access to our facilities through the Ministry of Housing. So I’m trying to regulate the industry by calling on developers, landlords, brokers, realtors, agents etc. to come and register so as to sensitise the sector because it’s polluted. Some still came here yesterday, saying they have about 4,000 members.
The question is that how many of them have registered?
and then