Defrauded Tenant:

My ‘Landlord’ was also a tenant….like me!

Idid not know that I had so much junk in my house. That was until I got home one day and found all my possessions outside the two bedroom flat that I had called home for the past three and a half years. I was so shocked at seeing my things that I could not speak for a few minutes. When I found my voice, I charged at the two men in front of the gate who were looking at me with some derision. “What was the meaning of this” I demanded. Without saying a word, they motioned that I direct my questions to a man in native attire beside whom stood a lawyer in his court outfit.

To say I was stunned by what they told me was an understatement. The man who two others and I had called our landlord for over three years was a tenant himself. Worse still, he had not paid rent to the real landlord for over seven years and it was only after a five-year court battle that the real owner of the property had gotten his house back.

What a mugu I have been. Just last week, my so-called Landlord had collected two additional years' rent from me and the other ‘tenants’. He even borrowed some money on top of that. I knew that there was no need to ask the question about his whereabouts – he was never to be seen again.

I have been robbed!

FAKE LANDLORD’S SIDE: Greed always blinds.

I know many people would be quick to say that my ‘tenants’ were duped by me but hold your judgement until you hear my side of the story. I got to meet this righteous-sounding tenant when he came to look at a property next to the one I was renting. He looked so desolate that he could not get the property that I took pity on him and suggested that he could share part of mine. He assumed that I was the landlord but he should have suspected something was amiss especially when I agreed to accept a figure 50% lower than the going rate in the area. Of course, I got an additional 50% on top by scaring him one day that officials from Physical Planning Department had come and were threatening to demolish the alterations we had made to the house. The idiot thought he had found an ode Lagos Landlord and so proposed for two others to join him and he collected agency commission and legal fees from them. I was always patient and ensured that I used one style or the other to get my correct money from him.

As a ‘tenant’, he was very bad. Never wanting to contribute, always late in his ‘rent’, rejecting reasonable increases in rent and so on. When I knew that the real landlord was soon going to take possession by the courts, I agreed to accept a very low rent from him on the condition that he paid two years rent in advance. The greedy man happily agreed. Then I suggested a deal I was working on, which any three year old baby would know amounted to 419 but Mr. Greedy happily accepted to finance it. I am very sure this is not how he told you the story!

Like they always say in CASTLES magazine: if it’s too good to be true, then watch out!

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