‘Govt not leaving any stone unturned to combat fraud in real estate’

Lagos State government has said it is not leaving any stone unturned to combat issues of fraud in the real estate sector.

According to the Special Adviser to the Lagos State Government on Housing, Barakat Odunuga-Bakare out of over 1,577  petitions received from 2020 till now, the Lagos State Real Estate Registration Agency (LASRERA) has been able to resolve 1,077 petitions, while eight cases bothering on real estate’ frauds are still in court.

She said the number of  unlicensed people practicing real estate in the state is alarming, hence the prevalent cases of fraud.

Odunuga-Bakare bemoaned the activities of fraudsters parading as developers or agents in the sector,  calling on all real estate developers, landlords, agents and realtors to come forward and register with LASRERA in order to sanitise the industry.

“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 agent. They are not licensed to practice real estate,” she said.

She explained what LASRERA has done and what is doing presently is to sanitise the state’s real estate market, warning that anybody thinking to defraud people in Lagos State and get away with people’s money is messing with his or her future.

“We had a case sometime last year September of one real estate 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 begining of his administration, they were able to apprehend the man.

“He travelled out of the country  and came back. He was napped; and as we speak right now, it’s in incarceration.

“He had been told to pay money back to those he collected money from. Also, the said property has been taken over by the state government and the 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 hisfuture,” the special adviser said.

She also narrated how her agency intervened and helped a diaspora Nigerian in Canada get allocation of his parcels of land after three years of payment to a developer.

She said: “The man in Canada said one developer collected N20 million from him and the case went on for about three years; he wasn’t allocated any land. He went on social media and was 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 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 allocation to his parcels of land. He has also done appreciation post as well just to calm people down.”

The special adviser on housing emphasised the need for collaboration between the public and private sectors in order to sanitise the real estate market in the state.

She assured government’s readiness and openness to do business with the private sector 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 industry by calling on developers, landlords, brokers agent, to come and register so as to sensitise that sector because it’s polluted,” she said.