The adoption of digital marketing mostly for property leasing and sale has brought more visibility and dynamism to the real estate market in Nigeria. Data from Nigeria Property Centre (NPC), a property search website in 2018, for instance, indicated that the site attracted 7.4 million visits which generated 929,000 enquiries for property listed on the website.
The number of visits to the site was up by 64 percent while the number of enquiries generated was up by 165 percent compared to 2017. There were 129,000 property listings added to the website in 2018.
But this closer-to-user method has also come with a baggage of fraud for many house hunters. Fake developers and agents are increasingly masking their mischievous intent behind screens, placing fake properties on online for widespread promotion and unsuspecting renters falling for the ruse. More often than not, the red flags are there but they are easily ignored.
Leveraging the digital opportunity without falling prey to rental scam will require renters going the extra mile to carry out due diligence on selected properties, experts say. While the onus lies on promotional websites to conduct background checks and verification of claims of property companies or agents, before making that deposit or that transfer, Arasi Abimbola, deputy managing director at PropertyMart Real Estate Investment Limited says it’s necessary to be familiar with the entities involved.
“You have to check whom you are dealing with because anyone can place anything on the internet. If you are not familiar with them you might not have anyone accountable if anything goes wrong,” he said.
“Platforms have a duty to check the people they put their properties online to be sure that they don’t scam people. They can do this through profiling. You have to check the track record. Has the person been doing it for a while? Do they have a good reputation? Do they have customers to testify? It takes a lot of effort because in this part of the world, you don’t totally have that structure,” he added.
For marketers, Chidinma Enyinnaya, business development analyst at Realtor.ng said a proper verification process should involve screening the CAC of an enterprise to confirm it is actually registered in Nigeria as an agent. It should also assess the landowner document and physical checks.
However for renters, she says, “our job is just to link the agent and the property. Always try to do your own research. Ask for direct owners. If there is an agent you can meet face-to-face, it is better so that there is somebody that can be accountable. The victims have every right to sue agent because that’s fraud.”
Rental scam begins with a fraudulent activity by a person who claims to rent out a property that isn’t their brief, doesn’t exist, or is their brief but is different from what’s advertised. The main goal of a rental scam is to obtain money in the form of application fees, pet fees, security deposits and rent from a prospective tenant without providing the advertised rental property. The red flags come in the form of permanent vacancy, ghost rentals, bait-and-switch, hijacked adverts, already leased or missing amenities.
Fraudsters could show an apartment to prospective renters, collect application fees and never rent it out. Some of those properties can be on the market for years without ever being rented. In other cases, fake listings for places that don’t exist or aren’t for rent could be created. A property advertised is not the same property that the victim is signing a lease for. Sometimes victims are even shown the apartment, but it’s different from the one stated in their contract.
An instance is 11, Abeni Close, Asha Estate, Gbagada, where over 75 renters who picked interest in the yet-to-be-completed one-storey-building were defrauded of a total payment of over N20 million in June.
The property was listed mostly on various property websites which are considered to be non-classified marketplaces because of the loose framework of operation and lack of accountability to users in the event of a bad transaction.
Through agents who subscribe to these platforms for widespread promotion, renters including those outside Lagos got in contact with a certain landlord named Mr Bobby and Olaleye Aderonke, his supposed sister. The duo interfaced with renters and pressured them into paying upfront or risk losing out to the rush. In less than a month of flooding the Stanbic IBTC bank account of Olaleye payments, she disappeared without a trace, her account balance empty.
Upon arrest by officers of the Ifako-Ijaiye Police Station in Gbagada, Bobby the property owner disclaimed having any family tie with Aderonke, saying she is a trusted developer whom he has worked with for a long time. The police charged Bobby to court, with the case, adjourned till the August 23, 2019 for further hearing.
According to the police, they lack the resources to track Aderonke who is at large with renters money. Yet they are unwilling to hand the matter over to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) as requested by the victims.
Among the victims are Priscilla, an immigration officer, Tosin Lamina, a photographer and Fisayo Ajayi, a music studio worker.
“I feel terrible. I’ve only been in Lagos for like a year and a half. I’m still in shock. We have all been duped. I don’t know how smart we are but she actually messed us up. My agent took me there and I thought this woman was nice,” Fisayo Ajayi said.
Ajayi who was looking to rent a bedroom flat works as an assistant to Uche Obi at Chocolate City Music studio in Gbagada. Obi, being familiar with Gbagada, took interest in following up on the house and realised it belongs to Bobby, his family friend.
“The house was initially handled by someone else introduced to us as his sister, who we are now discovering that she is a developer. We’ve paid in full for one year. We paid N300,000 in addition to an agency fee of N50,000. We paid to the developer who we thought was his sister. We started with a N200,000 down payment on June 22, 2019. The landlord now says the lady is a developer whom he met through a third party,” Obi explained.
Tosin Lamina was set for work with his camera at a wedding when information reached him that the N640, 000 he paid for a two-bedroom flat might have fizzled into thin air with no apartment to show for it. He blamed himself for being too trusting and ignoring the red flags.
“I spoke to him last week and he told me I was going to move in by the end of this month. There were a lot of red flags which I think I see now. I think I trusted him too much and it didn’t make sense for me not to trust him again at that point. I don’t know what to do. I was supposed to have moved out since June but I’ve been pleading with my landlord to give me more time. I don’t know what to do,” Lamina said.
For Priscilla, it is neither her first nor second experience of renting an apartment in Lagos, but it is definitely a first mistake that has cost her N425, 000. She is particularly pained by the fact that the agents who introduced victims did little or no research on the building.
“How can you register a property and not know the owner? I found this property on Nigerian Property online and the numbers of the agents are switched. Now, the house is guarded by security personnel. They don’t properly check the houses they take their clients to,” she fumed.
While the victims await the arrival of August 23, they hope the police will rise to assist them in tracking Aderonke and that closer monitoring is done on the activities of online operators.
Temitayo Ayetoto
