Don’t increase house rent now, expert tells landlords

As the impact of COVID-19 on the economy lingers, a property expert has advocated against rent increment.

Mr Gersh Henshaw, the President of the Estate Surveyors and Valuers’ Registration Board of Nigeria (ESVARBON), said as professionals they were advising landlords against rent increment.

Mr Henshaw stated this during the foundation stone laying of ESVARBON’s multibillion five-storey apartment project in Jahi, Abuja. Apart from other ventures, the building will also house the headquarters of the regulatory body.

He said, “As a professional body, we have tried to advocate on behalf of the people. This is not the best of times for you to say you are increasing rent. Rent is a proportion of something. A man who has not earned his income or whose income is threatened; where are you increasing the rent to? One thing is to increase the rent and another is to get the rent paid. So which is the better of the two evils?

“A man is trying to pay what he has been paying and then you say you are reviewing the rent; it doesn’t work that way. We are advocating that people should see that the economy is yet to pick up.”

On the ESVARBON property in Jahi, Mr Henshaw said, “We are in a rented apartment here in Abuja and government has magnanimously given us a land; so we have to start.

“I have a three-year tenure, if we cannot move in here we will start action here and that is why we have taken the bull by the horn. We haven’t gotten N100m in place, but we have to start. Whatever we have we said let us start, because where there is a will there is a way to succeed.”