Barakat Odunuga-Bakare, the Special Adviser to the Lagos State Governor on Housing, has disclosed that before the end of 2024 or early next year, the state will enforce a monthly rental scheme.

She said this during a press briefing of the Lagos State Real Estate Regulatory Authority in Ikeja, Lagos.

She said, “We all see what is being done in other climes, rents are collected monthly. Hence, we are looking and hoping that before the end of the year, or by early next year, we will be able to implement the policy of monthly rental. Also, the rental would be charged according to tenants’ earnings.

“The good part about it is that we would be test-running it first within the public sector since we can ascertain how much everybody is earning, and once we see that it works in the public sector, we can now push it out to the private sector.”

Odunuga-Bakare also stated that the N5bn allocated for the monthly rental scheme was still intact.

She continued, “The last administration that initiated the monthly rental scheme was coming to an end when the scheme was to be introduced.  Now, we have a new administration and the governor wants the scheme to come into effect by the end of this year or early next year.”

Recall that in 2021, the Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, had said the current rental model, in which tenants pay yearly rent in advance to property owners, has become inadequate to address contemporary realities in the housing sector.