Recovery of premises has always been an issue, between Landlord and tenant, especially on the rules or law guiding termination of a tenancy agreement. Such as, whether to give a Notice to Quit, seven days notice, or whether a tenant is expected to pay rent after receiving notice to quit. It is of importance to state here, that the law regulating recovery of premises is what is known as Recovery of Premises Act. This law is made to prevent a landlord from evicting a tenant from his premises without giving him a proper time or adequate notices. Under the Recovery of Premises Act, a landlord who needs his premises must first make his intention known to the tenant by, serving on him what is generally known as QUIT NOTICE. A quit notice is a precondition for commencing the recovery of premises as provided in Section 7 Recovery of Premises Act Cap 544 LFCT, Nigeria 2007. (Tinuola v. Okon (1966) 2 All NLR 118). The duration of notice to quit would depend on the agreement between the parties. But where there is no express agreement, in respect of the duration of notice, the applicable statutes (Recovery of Premises Act) imputes the duration of Notice to Quit in the following manners:
1. Weekly tenancy- a week notice.
2. Monthly tenancy - a month notice.
3. Quarterly tenancy - 3 months notice.
4. Half a year tenancy- 3 months notice.
5. Yearly tenancy- 6 months notice.
Any tenancy agreement exceeding one year is treated as a yearly tenancy. One must note, that your landlord or his agent needs not to serve a tenant a notice to quit in some cases. Among those instances are;
i. If a tenant is on a weekly or monthly tenancy agreement, and he is in arrears of rent for six months (i.e owing rent for nothing less than six months).
ii. If a tenant is on a yearly tenancy and he is owing rent for one year.
In the instances listed above, the tenancy agreement is said to have been determined by OPERATION OF LAW. As such, all a tenant only needs to be given is Seven Days Notice. However, where the tenancy hasn’t been determined by operation of law, the landlord or his agent must first serve Quit Notice. At the expiration of the Quit Notice, if the tenant fails to quit and/or deliver up possession of premises, the landlord or his agent is to serve on the tenant “Landlord’s intention to apply to recover possession” popularly known as Seven Days Notice. This gives the tenant a notice that, after the expiration of seven days, the landlord will be heading to Court to ask for the possession of his premises. Note that, in counting the seven days, the day of service i.e the day the landlord serves the Seven Days Notice must be excluded from the counting. Many people have the belief that payment of rent stopped once the landlord serves on his tenant QUIT NOTICE. Under the law, this position is not true in any way. A rent not paid after the receipt of QUIT NOTICE will amount to arrears of rent, which will be paid if the landlord eventually takes his tenant to court.

The above information is not a substitute for professional legal advice. This does not create a lawyer-client relationship, nor it a solicitation to offer legal advice. If you need legal advice, please contact us directly.

Nice one

Hello i need an advice on this issue:
I came back this evening to find quite notices on my door. caption of 6 months quite notice when my rent expiration is on septemeber, 2020 what should i do