Being careful about service charges

Learning is a continuous process; it is an on-going process, you learn every day and the day you stop learning, that is the day you die.

There is a trend in Abuja about serviced and furnished apartments, these are usually likened to home away from home; the tenants have access to the complete package. It is usually a situation of pay and park-in with just your clothing, and in some cases beddings and utensils.

This type of accommodation may also offer facilities similar to those offered by hotels or a B&B (a bed and breakfast arrangement) but each rental arrangement is different depending on services provided and the duration of the rental.

Service charge is not a landlord’s money. It is not a profit making venture. It does not exonerate the landlords from fulfilling their obligation/liabilities under the lease. This helps to forestall (prevent) conflicts between the stakeholders.

Some of the challenges faced in managing a serviced and furnished apartment go beyond collection of rent and service charge, they also include wear and tear of furniture, maintenance and repairs, deferred maintenance, void periods, badlybehaved tenants, disputes/conflicts in service charge administration, among others.

I want to advise that solutions to apartment management challenges include effecting marketing and leasing of vacant spaces to avoid void periods, tenant screening to avoid problematic or badly-behaved tenants.

Others include inspections: – move-in inspections with inventorization, collecting and holding security and caution deposits, timely property maintenance and repairs and resolving tenants’ disputes and complaints.

One should always get a lawyer to prepare a well-detailed tenancy agreement detailing what the service charge covers and a clause stating that the service charge is a deposit which can be augmented.

This is key and has saved many on several occasions especially