I have a tenant who has refused to pay his rent for almost a year. He is constantly giving me excuses that he found it difficult to get raw material for the product he manufacture and sell as source of income. He's been given quit notice since July. Till date, his response has been he's not be able to get an accomodation that will befit the same space and area he rents from me and I should give him time. Yet he has refused to pay his rents. Even his Nepa bill has not been paid for the 2 and half years.

My problem is that I can't start lawyer procedure as I intend leaving the country soon.

Can somebody advise if I can take "military guys" to eject him. Will it be lawful? I need an urgent advise.

suppose I go through lawyer's proceeding, how long will it take and at what cost?

Please I need an advise. The accomodation needs to be evacuated as I have some other plans for it when I travel.

I need an urgent answer from Nairalanders.


Many Thanks.

Since you have been patient with him all the while, you have to take the legal steps as Mr Law said.

rockhaven:

A WELL MOTIVATED LAWYER who knows his job could effect his removal with or without court processes within 4months.
what fees the lawyer will charge depends on the rent the property commands in the market.

Rockhaven,

You are very economical with your advice here,as a lawyer given an elaborate explanation gives your client a better position to make a right decision.

@poster,

The first step in Landlord Tenant eviction process is what you have just done by giving a quit notice,it usually be for 3 months except in situation if the lease is expired and immediate eviction is needed.
There 3  basic reasons for eviction and one of it is the breach of payment of rent,at the expiration of the 3 months quit notice,you can then go to court to seek repossession of your property.
You tenant have a right to file a defence,if he loss the case he can as well appeal.
The 4 months bench mark is very doubtful here because the court if very soft to the tenant when such an eviction will lead to homelessness.
Do not result to self help it will certainly backfire.
The lawyer fees is open to discussion and is dependent on what you can afford.
Personally,i will suggest you contact another lawyer here in property thread with a user ID Lawyer he is very vibrant in dishing out information.

all u need is a lawyer,u have to eject him b4 u travel or find a good lawyer to represent u while u are away.trust me tenants will give u excuse forever.or did u build or buy ur house with sand,in fact he has to pay for every kobo he owes u. am still in the same situation,but immediately my lawyer summon them to appear in court in the next 2 weeks ,one of the tenants (a banker)returned the flat key immediately,hopefully the rest will follow b4 the deadline or appear in court and u know the rest.i pay my rent here everymonth,if i dont pay for one one month,i will be homeless.let them cut their coat according to their size.as a stuggling young man i need my return on investment.,even if am a millionaire am not father xmas.

Thanks all for your advise and response. Just that 4 months is ong. Don't have any other choice. I'll get a lawyer and start the precedings.

Thanks and God bless u all.

You can start the proceedings at the expiration of the 3 months quit notice.

Quit notice was given to him since June.

Saharo:

Quit notice was given to him since June.

Good,you can now file a suit for repossession of property for breach of non payment of rents and recovery of unpaid rents.
You will be fine.

@saharo

Sorry i havent been able to get back to you. It was due to events beyond my control. Now that i have been offically been confirmed by brownbonno as the lawyer to nairalanders, lol, I have to advise you and others on what to do. My fee is $2billion with oceanic bank interest of 23%, lol, Just kidding!

Now to the issue at hand:

I have read your complaint against your tenant and i would tell you authoritatively, it wont take more than 3 months at most and minimum 1 month to ejecct him out. I dont know what state your in now but the tenant/landlord legal relationship is covered by the Recovery of Premises Act/Law of the state or The Recovery of Residential Premises Law of the state of the question.

The aim of these laws to to prevent the unlawful ejection of tenants or the illegal holding over by tenants(As in your own case) and the arbitrarily increase in rents.

Now for you to use this procedure to eject the tenant, these rules must be followed extremely strictly and just one mis-step or mistake in this procedure would make the whole ejection process a waste of time ,so if you intend to use the law to eject him, follow these rules to the teeth:

1. I dont know the kind of tenancy existing between you and the tenant but there are 3 major types of tenancy that is common in Nigeria namely:

a. Weekly Tenancy

b. Monthly Tenancy

c. Yearly Tenancy

A weekly tenant is to pay his rent weekly and after he fails to pay for the forth coming week, he is liable to be ejected.

A monthly tenant is to pay his rent monthly and after he fails to pay for the forth coming month, he is liable to be ejected.

A yearly tenant is to pay his rent yearly and after he fails to pay for the forth coming year, he is liable to be ejected.

Now the information or quit notice to be given to the tenant should follow this rule:

1. E.g if your tenant rents a place on the 1st day of january 2007 on a sunday, his rent should expire on saturday the 7th day of January 2007. If your to give him a quit notice, it must be one full calendar week that must show before you eject him.

E.g let's assume you already have a problem with him on the 3rd of January 2007, you cannot give him a quit notice on thursday the 5th of january 2007 and expect him to give up the premises on saturday the 7th day of 2007. That quit notice you gave him on the 5th of january 2007 will start running from the 8th of January 2007 and he must give up possession on saturday the 14th day of january 2007.

The law states there must be one full clear week so that the person has the opportunity to look for other arrangements.

The same rule also applies to a monthly tenant and he must be given one full clear calendar month before you eject him.

E.G he rents the place on the 1st of January 2007, his rent will expire on the31st of january 2007. If you now want to eject him and you give him a quit notice on the 17th of january 2007 so as to make him quit on the 31st of january 2007, that quit notice would hold no water; instead that quit notice would serve as a valid quit notice for the tenant to vacate your house on the 28th or 29th day of february 2007. If you mistakenly issue him the quit notice on the 1st day on february 2007 so as to eject him on the 29th of february, the law would hold it against you. Instead, the law will calculate the quit notice from the 1st day of march 2007 and the tenant is expected to quit the premises on the 1st day of April 2007.

This is what is called COMPUTATION OF TIME IN LEGAL LANGUAGE and it was decided in the famous court case of GB Olivant V Oyekoya. The courts are very very strict in interpreting quit notices so you must be very careful.

Now in cases of Yearly Tenancy. There must be 6 clear months of quit notice before you eject a tenant. If you make that mistake of not complying with that rule, walahi, that tenant will just be enjoying in that house and you will just grow grey hairs because of that simple fatal error.

E.g You lease a property to a tenant on the 1st of January 2007 for a year, the rent should naturally expire on the 31st of December 2007 and he has the right to renew the tenancy agreement. If you dont want any form of renewal from that tenant, the latest time he should be given a quit notice should be June 30th 2007 so that the clear 6 months of july, august, september, october, november and december would show clearly.

If you mistakenly give him the quit notice on July 1st, the clear 6 months quit notice will start from August, september, october, november, December and January 2008. So instead of him leaving your house jejely on the 31st of December 2007, with your own hands, you have extended his tenancy for an extra one month free of charge.

So imagine if you now gave him the quit notice on November 24th 2007 You do the maths and knock your self on the head for failing this simple test.

The law is extremely strict with this and no matter how angry or aggrieved you might be, this rule must be followed. Most tenants actually use this medium to stay longer than necessary in a house because if the landlord fails to get a lawyer to manage his property and falls for this trap, these kind of problems will occur and the landlord is TOTALLY HELPLESS.

THE PROCEDURE:

Now that you know how quit notices are computed in law, these are the procedures to follow. A fatal mistake here will lead to a waste of time of the whole process:

1. There must be a letter of instruction from you the landlord to the lawyer authorizing him to recover the premises from the tenant. If you dont write this letter of authorization or instruction to the lawyer to authorize him to eject the tenant, you have missed the very first step and a very eagle eyed lawyer like me, will spot this mistake and when you go to court to ask the court to eject that tenant, all i need to do as a defence is to alert the court that there is no letter of authorization granting the lawyer the right to carry it out. Automatically, the case will be thrown out and you have to start the process all over again.

(The best way to avoid all these problems from the beginning is to engage a lawyer to manage the affairs of the house. By managing the affairs of the house, you will need to sign a power of attorney so that the lawyer is the one that issues the quit notices at the right time, probably collect the outstanding rents on your behalf when due and issue letters of warning and legal sanctions to erring tenants. With this power of attorney for one year at a time, you dont need to have any form of personal or business relationship with the tenants. All the rents, quit notices and anything that has to do with the house is the lawyer's problem. You the Landlord only need to briefed by the lawyer alone and check your bank account. No tenant has a right to see you concerning incrememt of rent or quit notice or nepa bill hasnt been paid. All correspondence to the lawyer and the lawyer corresponds to you the landlord)

2. After the letter of instruction has been drafted and granted by the landlord to the lawyer, the lawyer can now issue the Quit notice legally.

The purpose of the quit notice is to end the landlord and tenant relationship formally. A quit notice must contain all these facts unless it is a defective quit notice:

a. The name of the person giving the notice

b. The name and Address of the landlord

c. The nature of the premises i.e whether it is a room, flat, duplex or warehouse (If you fail to a specify what the tenant rented, the quit notice is defective)

d. The location of the premises: address of the place

e. The nature of the tenancy; whether it is monthly, weekly or yearly

f. The commencement of the tenancy i.e when the rent or tenancy started i.e 1st january 2007

g. The termination of the tenancy or the day the tenancy ended i.e 31st december

h. That the tenant should quit and deliever up possession of the premises

i. Dated and signed


The quit notice must be served personally to the tenant unless it becomes a major defect in the process. If it cant be served to the tenant personally, the lawyer should go to court to obtain a court order that grants the landlord the right to serve the tenant through a process called substituted service. This substituted service means the quit notice can be placed anywhere within the conspicious parts and premises of property and if the tenant likes, he can claim he didn not see it, that wont avail him in court. It will be deemd that he has been properly served

The above is what is called the statutory notice to quit and it must be followed strictly unless, i can't shout anymore o!

(Please try and engage a lawyer or alert one in time or in advance unless you would be giving both the lawyer and your self mega headache. the law won't bend for you at all o!)



NOTICE OF OWNER'S INTENTION TO RECOVER PREMISES: Part2

This part is very important so please read carefully:

If you have followed the required legal procedure of instructing the lawyer to carry out the ejection through a letter and the lawyer has issued the quit notice in a legal way following the rules of the recovery of premises procedure; whether it is a weekly, monthly or yearly tenancy, then you would know that in most situations, the quit notice does not usually make the tenant leave the premises. It is during the quit notice period that the tenant will start giving silly excuses to elongate his stay on the premises such as what the poster has said and begging you to give him time.

The next thing to do is for the lawyer to issue to the tenant on behalf of the landlord a new notice. This new notice is called OWNERS'S INTENTION TO RECOVER PREMISES. This notice is served to the tenant immediately the quit notice expires. The landlord is no longer called the landlord because the quit notice has effectively cancelled the existing relationship between the landlord and tenant. The landlord is now called the OWNER.

This notice gives the tenant 7CLEAR DAYS to QUIT AND DELIEVER UP POSSESSION. If the tenant still refuses to leave the premises after this 7 clear days owners intention to recover premises, then the lawyer can now apply to the court to issue the tenant a Writ of summons against that tenant who is holding over the premises illegally.

The Owner's intention to recover premises must contain the following:

a. The name of the person giving notice

b. The name and address of the landlord

c.Date that the notice to quit expired

d.Request that tenant should give up possession within 7 days

e.Date on which the writ of summons will be issued

f. Dated and signed.

This notice must be delievered and served on the tenant PERSONALLY unless it wont stand in court. The away around this is that if the tenant is trying to dodge or prevent you from giving or the tenancy doesnt want to recieve the notice, the lawyer applies to court to get an order that the notice should be served to him in a substituted manner. A substituted manner includes, placing the notice on any where conspicious within the premises where he can see if and if he chooses to pretend he did not see it, then that is his problem. The order of the court granting the substituted service and the owners intention to recover premises notice are both placed together in a conspicious place.

If you dont get that order from the court, you are not entitled to place it in a conspicious place. Failure to serve the proper notice renders the whole court action or ejection illegal.


OPTIONS OPEN TO THE LANDLORD/OWNER DURING THE COURT EJECTION PROCESS:

1. The landlord can recover his premises in court immediately if he follows the rule diligently because the tenant would have no defence and immediately the order to eject the tenant would be granted and court sherriffs or policemen would come and help you throw out the tenant sharp sharp with the backing of the law.

2. You can also sue the tenant for Arrears of the rent. Arrears for the rent includes money owed by the tenant during the tenancy. E.g The land lord rented the place to a tenant for 1 year and the tenant payed only for 8 months and promised to pay the balance before the tenancy expired, the landlord can sue the tenant for the arrears of the rent being owed by the tenant.

3 Also the Landlord can sue the tenant in another way to get his money. This process is called MENSE PROFIT. This Mense profit is money calculated due from the tenant for illegally holding over possession after the tenancy has been terminated. E.G The tenancy expired on the 31st of December 2007 and he was or is still in that property till the 4th of july 2008. The mense profit is the amount of rent due to the landlord between january 1st to july 31. It will be calculated in a manner as if the landlord as rented the property to anew tenant and it will be computed based on the open market value of the property. i.e including interest.

From the above complaint, it is a very very easy case. In fact too easy to handle and this is the kind of cases lawyers prefer, no wahala in ejecting the tenant because he has over spent his time on that property.

1. The time of the tenancy has expired, so technically, he is not supposed to be there. In law, he is known as a Tenant-in-sufferance or a Tenant-at-will. This means he is just staying there by your grace and if you kick him out tomorrow, no yawa. In fact you dont have to give him a 6 months notice but a simple 1 week notice will suffice since he has been there for over a year without paying rent. He is a weekly tenant at most in this situation.

2. You can also sue him for both arrears of rent and mense profit.

3. After you chop all that money from him, abeg remember me o! Na me leak the expo for you o!, lol

Cheers mate!

The difference is clear!

@Lawyer,

Tell me why God will not show you road after all this elaborate explanation?
Oh boy you don't need fasting and prayers to succeed.The Bible said,Give and it shall given unto you , (give what you have).

@Poster,

We have lawyer and  lawyers,the choice is yours.

Lawyer, I I appreciate YOU and ALL of YOU.

@brownbonno and bphace 4 u

Lol at your comments and thanks, everyone needs to know what the law is. Ignorance of the law isnt an excuse in mordern day business and just the way i learn from you guys in other aspects of business, there is nothing wrong learning from me. Its a global village and we all need each other.

@saharo

Please dont use any kind of jankara or military force to get the tenant out of your place unless you might just be inviting a law suit for your self which you definately dont need at this moment. Get your self a lawyer and with N50,000 or less, your property would be free from that tenant. And after you do that, make sure you get a lawyer to manage your properties. You cannot continue to be battling with these people every end of the year for rent and quit notice and allow your time and business to waste. Most property investors leave that aspect to their lawyers while they have time to invest in more properties or business.

Can you imagine donald trump, the american real estate mogul pursuing tenants left, right and centre to pay their rent and issue quit notice or dangote doing like wise?

Cheers mate!

@LAWYER

Thanks for your elaborate explanation.

Will follow suit.


AND TO YOU ALL:


THANKS FOR BEING A FRIEND IN NEED.

@LAWYER,

I've sent you an email regarding this particular topic, please let me know what you think. Alex

lawyer:
@saharo

Sorry i havent been able to get back to you. It was due to events beyond my control. Now that i have been offically been confirmed by brownbonno as the lawyer to nairalanders, lol, I have to advise you and others on what to do. My fee is $2billion with oceanic bank interest of 23%, lol, Just kidding!

Now to the issue at hand:

I have read your complaint against your tenant and i would tell you authoritatively, it wont take more than 3 months at most and minimum 1 month to ejecct him out. I dont know what state your in now but the tenant/landlord legal relationship is covered by the Recovery of Premises Act/Law of the state or The Recovery of Residential Premises Law of the state of the question.

The aim of these laws to to prevent the unlawful ejection of tenants or the illegal holding over by tenants(As in your own case) and the arbitrarily increase in rents.

Now for you to use this procedure to eject the tenant, these rules must be followed extremely strictly and just one mis-step or mistake in this procedure would make the whole ejection process a waste of time ,so if you intend to use the law to eject him, follow these rules to the teeth:

1. I dont know the kind of tenancy existing between you and the tenant but there are 3 major types of tenancy that is common in Nigeria namely:

a. Weekly Tenancy

b. Monthly Tenancy

c. Yearly Tenancy

A weekly tenant is to pay his rent weekly and after he fails to pay for the forth coming week, he is liable to be ejected.

A monthly tenant is to pay his rent monthly and after he fails to pay for the forth coming month, he is liable to be ejected.

A yearly tenant is to pay his rent yearly and after he fails to pay for the forth coming year, he is liable to be ejected.

Now the information or quit notice to be given to the tenant should follow this rule:

1. E.g if your tenant rents a place on the 1st day of january 2007 on a sunday, his rent should expire on saturday the 7th day of January 2007. If your to give him a quit notice, it must be one full calendar week that must show before you eject him.

E.g let's assume you already have a problem with him on the 3rd of January 2007, you cannot give him a quit notice on thursday the 5th of january 2007 and expect him to give up the premises on saturday the 7th day of 2007. That quit notice you gave him on the 5th of january 2007 will start running from the 8th of January 2007 and he must give up possession on saturday the 14th day of january 2007.

The law states there must be one full clear week so that the person has the opportunity to look for other arrangements.

The same rule also applies to a monthly tenant and he must be given one full clear calendar month before you eject him.

E.G he rents the place on the 1st of January 2007, his rent will expire on the31st of january 2007. If you now want to eject him and you give him a quit notice on the 17th of january 2007 so as to make him quit on the 31st of january 2007, that quit notice would hold no water; instead that quit notice would serve as a valid quit notice for the tenant to vacate your house on the 28th or 29th day of february 2007. If you mistakenly issue him the quit notice on the 1st day on february 2007 so as to eject him on the 29th of february, the law would hold it against you. Instead, the law will calculate the quit notice from the 1st day of march 2007 and the tenant is expected to quit the premises on the 1st day of April 2007.

This is what is called COMPUTATION OF TIME IN LEGAL LANGUAGE and it was decided in the famous court case of GB Olivant V Oyekoya. The courts are very very strict in interpreting quit notices so you must be very careful.

Now in cases of Yearly Tenancy. There must be 6 clear months of quit notice before you eject a tenant. If you make that mistake of not complying with that rule, walahi, that tenant will just be enjoying in that house and you will just grow grey hairs because of that simple fatal error.

E.g You lease a property to a tenant on the 1st of January 2007 for a year, the rent should naturally expire on the 31st of December 2007 and he has the right to renew the tenancy agreement. If you dont want any form of renewal from that tenant, the latest time he should be given a quit notice should be June 30th 2007 so that the clear 6 months of july, august, september, october, november and december would show clearly.

If you mistakenly give him the quit notice on July 1st, the clear 6 months quit notice will start from August, september, october, november, December and January 2008. So instead of him leaving your house jejely on the 31st of December 2007, with your own hands, you have extended his tenancy for an extra one month free of charge.

So imagine if you now gave him the quit notice on November 24th 2007 You do the maths and knock your self on the head for failing this simple test.

The law is extremely strict with this and no matter how angry or aggrieved you might be, this rule must be followed. Most tenants actually use this medium to stay longer than necessary in a house because if the landlord fails to get a lawyer to manage his property and falls for this trap, these kind of problems will occur and the landlord is TOTALLY HELPLESS.

THE PROCEDURE:

Now that you know how quit notices are computed in law, these are the procedures to follow. A fatal mistake here will lead to a waste of time of the whole process:

1. There must be a letter of instruction from you the landlord to the lawyer authorizing him to recover the premises from the tenant. If you dont write this letter of authorization or instruction to the lawyer to authorize him to eject the tenant, you have missed the very first step and a very eagle eyed lawyer like me, will spot this mistake and when you go to court to ask the court to eject that tenant, all i need to do as a defence is to alert the court that there is no letter of authorization granting the lawyer the right to carry it out. Automatically, the case will be thrown out and you have to start the process all over again.

(The best way to avoid all these problems from the beginning is to engage a lawyer to manage the affairs of the house. By managing the affairs of the house, you will need to sign a power of attorney so that the lawyer is the one that issues the quit notices at the right time, probably collect the outstanding rents on your behalf when due and issue letters of warning and legal sanctions to erring tenants. With this power of attorney for one year at a time, you dont need to have any form of personal or business relationship with the tenants. All the rents, quit notices and anything that has to do with the house is the lawyer's problem. You the Landlord only need to briefed by the lawyer alone and check your bank account. No tenant has a right to see you concerning incrememt of rent or quit notice or nepa bill hasnt been paid. All correspondence to the lawyer and the lawyer corresponds to you the landlord)

2. After the letter of instruction has been drafted and granted by the landlord to the lawyer, the lawyer can now issue the Quit notice legally.

The purpose of the quit notice is to end the landlord and tenant relationship formally. A quit notice must contain all these facts unless it is a defective quit notice:

a. The name of the person giving the notice

b. The name and Address of the landlord

c. The nature of the premises i.e whether it is a room, flat, duplex or warehouse (If you fail to a specify what the tenant rented, the quit notice is defective)

d. The location of the premises: address of the place

e. The nature of the tenancy; whether it is monthly, weekly or yearly

f. The commencement of the tenancy i.e when the rent or tenancy started i.e 1st january 2007

g. The termination of the tenancy or the day the tenancy ended i.e 31st december

h. That the tenant should quit and deliever up possession of the premises

i. Dated and signed


The quit notice must be served personally to the tenant unless it becomes a major defect in the process. If it cant be served to the tenant personally, the lawyer should go to court to obtain a court order that grants the landlord the right to serve the tenant through a process called substituted service. This substituted service means the quit notice can be placed anywhere within the conspicious parts and premises of property and if the tenant likes, he can claim he didn not see it, that wont avail him in court. It will be deemd that he has been properly served

The above is what is called the statutory notice to quit and it must be followed strictly unless, i can't shout anymore o!

(Please try and engage a lawyer or alert one in time or in advance unless you would be giving both the lawyer and your self mega headache. the law won't bend for you at all o!)



NOTICE OF OWNER'S INTENTION TO RECOVER PREMISES: Part2

This part is very important so please read carefully:

If you have followed the required legal procedure of instructing the lawyer to carry out the ejection through a letter and the lawyer has issued the quit notice in a legal way following the rules of the recovery of premises procedure; whether it is a weekly, monthly or yearly tenancy, then you would know that in most situations, the quit notice does not usually make the tenant leave the premises. It is during the quit notice period that the tenant will start giving silly excuses to elongate his stay on the premises such as what the poster has said and begging you to give him time.

The next thing to do is for the lawyer to issue to the tenant on behalf of the landlord a new notice. This new notice is called OWNERS'S INTENTION TO RECOVER PREMISES. This notice is served to the tenant immediately the quit notice expires. The landlord is no longer called the landlord because the quit notice has effectively cancelled the existing relationship between the landlord and tenant. The landlord is now called the OWNER.

This notice gives the tenant 7CLEAR DAYS to QUIT AND DELIEVER UP POSSESSION. If the tenant still refuses to leave the premises after this 7 clear days owners intention to recover premises, then the lawyer can now apply to the court to issue the tenant a Writ of summons against that tenant who is holding over the premises illegally.

The Owner's intention to recover premises must contain the following:

a. The name of the person giving notice

b. The name and address of the landlord

c.Date that the notice to quit expired

d.Request that tenant should give up possession within 7 days

e.Date on which the writ of summons will be issued

f. Dated and signed.

This notice must be delievered and served on the tenant PERSONALLY unless it wont stand in court. The away around this is that if the tenant is trying to dodge or prevent you from giving or the tenancy doesnt want to recieve the notice, the lawyer applies to court to get an order that the notice should be served to him in a substituted manner. A substituted manner includes, placing the notice on any where conspicious within the premises where he can see if and if he chooses to pretend he did not see it, then that is his problem. The order of the court granting the substituted service and the owners intention to recover premises notice are both placed together in a conspicious place.

If you dont get that order from the court, you are not entitled to place it in a conspicious place. Failure to serve the proper notice renders the whole court action or ejection illegal.


OPTIONS OPEN TO THE LANDLORD/OWNER DURING THE COURT EJECTION PROCESS:

1. The landlord can recover his premises in court immediately if he follows the rule diligently because the tenant would have no defence and immediately the order to eject the tenant would be granted and court sherriffs or policemen would come and help you throw out the tenant sharp sharp with the backing of the law.

2. You can also sue the tenant for Arrears of the rent. Arrears for the rent includes money owed by the tenant during the tenancy. E.g The land lord rented the place to a tenant for 1 year and the tenant payed only for 8 months and promised to pay the balance before the tenancy expired, the landlord can sue the tenant for the arrears of the rent being owed by the tenant.

3 Also the Landlord can sue the tenant in another way to get his money. This process is called MENSE PROFIT. This Mense profit is money calculated due from the tenant for illegally holding over possession after the tenancy has been terminated. E.G The tenancy expired on the 31st of December 2007 and he was or is still in that property till the 4th of july 2008. The mense profit is the amount of rent due to the landlord between january 1st to july 31. It will be calculated in a manner as if the landlord as rented the property to anew tenant and it will be computed based on the open market value of the property. i.e including interest.

From the above complaint, it is a very very easy case. In fact too easy to handle and this is the kind of cases lawyers prefer, no wahala in ejecting the tenant because he has over spent his time on that property.

1. The time of the tenancy has expired, so technically, he is not supposed to be there. In law, he is known as a Tenant-in-sufferance or a Tenant-at-will. This means he is just staying there by your grace and if you kick him out tomorrow, no yawa. In fact you dont have to give him a 6 months notice but a simple 1 week notice will suffice since he has been there for over a year without paying rent. He is a weekly tenant at most in this situation.

2. You can also sue him for both arrears of rent and mense profit.

3. After you chop all that money from him, abeg remember me o! Na me leak the expo for you o!, lol

Cheers mate!

Wow! Interesting, expository, informative and educative. Many thanks Barrister.
Please I would need ur kind opinion on an issue. A tenant of mine whose rent expired on May 31st, paid a six month rent into my account Monday dis week without my permission, infact, he didn't tell me. On receiving d alert, I called him as to why he made half payment into my account, he claimed I told him to pay half yearly at d expiration of his initial one year rent. This is a big lie. He is a yearly tenant and it is so stated in the tenancy agreement. Every other tenant in dat compound, pay yearly.
I intend returning his money to him by sunday when I would be chanced. I need d full year rent, I need d money for my small business. The said guy moved into d apartment last year, and his rent ran from June 1 to May 31 this year.
Kindly guide me sir. God bless!