₦airaland Forum

Nazgul:
There are some rules to adhere strictly to when searching for a house in Nigeria.

1. Always looking at the ceilings and walls of each of the rooms in the house. A wall or ceiling that's constantly being exposed to rains would have a different colour from the other parts of the wall or ceiling.

2. Go on weekends or in the evenings to check out the property. That way, you'll meet with adults who would tell you the pros and cons of the house.

3. No matter how the agent mounts pressure on you, never be in a hurry to make payment until you've confirmed that the house is good and doesn't have any issues.

On how to collect back your money, I'm afraid that there's nothing you can do rather than to wait for someone else to rent the house. Cos even if you choose to involve the police, the money was paid into the bank account of the landlady who isn't in Nigeria so there's nothing the lawyer can do.

Alternatively, you can call a carpenter to have a look at it and tell you the total cost, if it's within your ability, you can call the landlady to inform her that you'll be fixing the roof and she should deduct it from your next rent if she agrees. Have the lawyer sign an undertaking with his letter head bearing the name of his firm that the money you spent on the roof would be deducted from your next rent.

Once that is done, you have fix the roof and move in ASAP.

Why is it so difficult to refund the money. It wasn't even up to a week! Later this person will want to complain about troublesome tenants when she is using her hand to breed trouble.

She says the whole roof will be changed in january when the rain stops. So i doubt she will let us fix it and deduct from next rent.

I had to create a new account before posting this.

Please nairalanders, i need advice from experienced people on how to resolve this issue before seome will develop BP on top someone's wickedness.

So in january our rent was increased by about 90percent. Like we are to pay almost double. So we resolved to move since we cant afford it. Our rent was due june ending. We spoke to our landlord to give is time to move and he said 1month. Which would have been fine if this issue didn't come up.

So we saw a house, everything seemed ok. The landlady is based abroad so a lawyer was in charge. The agent in charge of the house stays on the street so he oversees the house on behalf of the lawyer. We went twice for inspection, we never met tenants in the compound just their children, i guess cause of the time we went. Just a lady in a shop outside the gate. And she assured us everything was ok.

We made payment directly to the landlady, through her account which the lawyer provided. 3days later, we went there, eventually met a tenant. He said the apartment's roof was leaking and that the previous tenant left because the landlady refused to fix it. On this particular day, there was water on the floor but we couldnt trace the source. We never met water on the floor. It seemed like the agent was cleaning it before taking anyone in. Because that is the only valid explanation.

Two days later, very little rain and we went there, see the whole wall soaked. We did a video and took it to the lawyer. Told her we were no longer interested (we already told her on the day we met water on the floor). We dropped the key and metre with her and asked for refund. Only for the landlady to say we must wait till the apartment is rented out to another unfortunate person. All this was in less than 1 week.

What kind of wickedness is this? First our rent is due, we cant even afford another money to look for any house again and we dont want to have issues with our current landlord.

How best can we go about this issue and recover our money fast? I really need advice as this whole issue would make me go crazy. All i see here is pure wickedness.