A Snap Look at the Lagos Tenancy Bill, 2025

By Gabriel Airewele

The proposed Lagos Tenancy and Recovery of Premises Bill arrives with familiar promises: rein in abuse, protect the vulnerable, professionalise practice, and speed up court proceedings. Lagos tried all of this in 2011. On paper, the Tenancy Law of 2011restricted advance rent, clarified jurisdiction of the Magistrates’ Courts and High Courtsand encouraged ADR, yet it never produced the intended restraint because enforcement and court administration lagged far behind the law. The Tenancy Law of 2011 shows the ambition—jurisdictional allocation, receipts for rent, limits on advance rent, and the introduction of ADR to tenancy related disputes—but ambition never translated into compliance.

To its credit, the new Bill reflects an earnest attempt to correct some of those gaps. Its focus on structuring tenancy transactions, streamlining possession processes, and introducing regulatory oversight shows a government alert to the social tensions surrounding rent and housing in Lagos. Few would disagree with the idea of more structure and clarity; in principle, these are welcome steps. But a closer look reveals old pitfalls waiting to reappear.

What landlords face, in reality, is procedural suffocation at first instance—most commonly in the Magistrates’ Courts—long before any appeal is filed. Routine objections, serial adjournments and technical ambushes transform summary recovery into slow-motion litigation. By the time a trial court finally gives judgment, many owners are years older, income-deprived and litigation-weary. Appeals then become weapons of attrition rather than instruments of correction of genuine injustice. Recent appellate decisions have started calling this out explicitly. In Bankole & Anor v. Oladitan (2022) LPELR-56502(CA), the Court of Appeal rejected the tenant’s effort to cling to possession through complaints about notice, holding that—on the facts—the tenant had ample notice yet exploited procedure to delay the inevitable. Notably, the matter began in 2008, and the substantive relief did not crystallise until 2014—an illustrative six-year drift that mirrors the lived experience of countless Lagos landlords.

If that sounds bad, 2025 supplied an even starker cautionary tale. In July, although the certified true copy of the judgment is yet to be seen, numerous online media platforms reported that the Court of Appeal (Lagos) ordered the immediate eviction of a tenant who had not paid rent for 19 years, dismissed the appeal as frivolous and abusive, and even referred the tenant’s counsel for disciplinary action. The court’s language, as captured in those reports, was said to be unambiguous about the misuse of appellate process to perpetuate unlawful occupation.

These outcomes echo the Supreme Court’s corrective turn in Pillars (Nig.) Ltd. v. Desbordes & Anor (2021) 12 NWLR (Pt. 1789) 122 (SC), where the apex court pushed back against technical objections that had long enabled overstaying tenants to exploit procedure. Whichever way one looks at the law and judicial attitude to landlord–tenant disputes, recovery-of-premises litigation has been hampered by procedural gamesmanship. Yet litigants remain undeterred, relitigating settled issues to buy time, knowing that delay itself is their only victory.

It is saddening that tenants can also extend this abuse to the Supreme Court as the Constitution guarantees appeals to that apex forum on questions of law. While this safeguard protects fundamental fairness, superior courts cannot, and should not, be re-determining tenancy or service issues already exhaustively addressed at first instance or on appeal. Yet, in practice, this further appellate layer is weaponised to prolong disputes, degrading the value of the appellate process itself and leaving property owners crushed under years of economic loss. A sensible reform would be to limit tenancy disputes so that they end at the Court of Appeal, except on constitutional questions, thereby preserving the Supreme Court for matters of genuine national importance while shielding landlords from interminable battles.

Against that background, the new Bill’s bid to mandate registration/licensing of “agents” under a state framework is difficult to defend as a tenancy fix. The public-facing rationale is to professionalise practice and curb exploitation; the practical effect, however, is a duplicative, state-controlled licensing layer over an ecosystem already policed by recognised professional bodies such as the Estate Surveyors and Valuers Registration Board of Nigeria. The registration fees that agents must pay to the Lagos State Real Estate Regulatory Authority (LASRERA) tilt the thrust of the Bill toward a revenue drive rather than a sincere attempt to ease the plight of landlords and tenants alike.

Even if one granted that all the Bill’s ‘restraining provisions’ will be obeyed (a generous assumption, given 2011), the economics of housing won’t yield to legislative fiat. Lagos rents are high because supply is chronically scarce relative to demand; registration of property ownership remains inefficient, limiting owners’ ability to leverage assets for finance and new projects; public housing has withered; repossession is still too slow and uncertain to make being a landlord attractive; while the prohibitive cost of land, spirallingprices of building materials and persistent inflation further drive up the expense of delivering new homes. No tenancy law can repeal the immutable economics of demand and supply.

A more credible policy mix would align law with economics: make first-instance adjudication genuinely summary, impose strict adjournment control, sanction dilatory conduct, and create a true expedited possession track for clear breaches. Ensure swift professional sanctions when courts identify abusive litigation behaviour; referrals, like the 2025 case must translate into timely and publicised disciplinary outcomes. Increase the ease of registration of titles to land by digitising and de-bottlenecking land administration so assets can be financed, renewed, and developed. Above all, build more housing through public and PPP routes, with predictable and transparent infrastructure cost-sharing.

If the Lagos State Government does those things, the market itself will enforce restraint as supply rises, repossession timelines shorten, and opportunistic holdover loses its payoff. Over-legislating while the machinery of justice and land administration creaks will make the proposed Bill risk futility—worthy in aspiration but unnecessary in practice, another statutory promise destined to repeat the failures of 2011.

Gabriel Airewele is a Partner in Rocklegal, a Lagos law firm.