“Give Us Names”: FG Announces Plan To Collect Triple Rent From Landlords of Unoccupied Houses
- The administration of President Bola Tinubu is determined to reduce Nigeria's housing deficit figures
- One of the latest plan is to ensure that at least the available houses and estates around the country are not abandoned
- To ensure this, the president vowed to catalogue and charge owners of vacant estates to ensure occupancy or sales
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After three months, the federal government will ask for triple ground rent on estates and houses left unoccupied.
Ground rent is a tax charged and collected by government on land (both developed or undeveloped).
Source: Getty Images
Ahmed Dangiwa, the Minister of Housing and Urban Development, disclosed this after a tour of three housing projects in Abuja.
He also reiterated efforts by the administration of President Tinubu to cut down housing deficit figures in Nigeria.
FG moves to tackle housing deficit
On the ground rent, Dangiwa noted that it would take stock of all abandoned houses and estates in Abuja, its environs, and other states.
He added that the ministry would interface with the buildings' owners and charge the triple ground rent if they insist on leaving the buildings unoccupied.
He said:
"There are a lot of abandoned estates, especially here in Abuja and its vicinity, I think we also have a few in some other states, we want to take Stoke of all those abandoned houses and interface with the owners and ask them, what do you want? Do you want to keep these houses? If you want to keep them unoccupied, the government would start charging you triple ground rent instead of the single ground rent that we charge.
"That would force them to either put it on rent at whatever amount or sell it off because we cannot keep saying we have housing deficits while we have a lot of empty houses that are completed and left unoccupied.
“We have tasked the Department of lands and Urban and Regional Planning in our ministry to take stock of those estates, to give us the names of the proprietors or owners of the estates, any estate that stayed more than three months unoccupied, then we would start charging them triple ground rent."
The minister also assured Nigerians that all abandoned projects at all costs, Vanguard reports.
He added:
"This administration is passionate about completing all abandoned projects at all costs, even if it means rescoping the projects and in the aspect of land bank, what we intend to do is use lands that the Ministry have in states, which is why we are tasking all our state controllers of housing to ensure they give us a catalog of all of the lands."
Landlord disappears after collecting N500,000
In a related story, Legit.ng reported that a lady who paid for an apartment discovered that the landlord had relocated abroad.
The lady said the landlord collected N500,000 from her before disappearing.
Many who saw her story on social media said she should move into the apartment even if the man was not around.
Source: Legit.ng
