Problems of Property Management — Examination of Landlord and Tenant Covenants

Abstract

Introduction

If there is a subject that should be of interest to everyone in every society, whether they are lawyers — learned friends or not, it is that of landlord and tenant. Apart from some vagrants who claim that they live under the bridge, everyone lives in a home which is either owned by him or let to him. Thus, everybody is either a landlord or a tenant. Even the very few vagrants that live under the bridge have landlord (i.e. the owner of the bridge) and they could be dispossessed therefrom as was witnessed in Lagos recently, when the Hon. Federal Minister of Works and Housing (the trustee landlord for Federal Government) dispossessed the squatters under the Eko Bridge in Lagos.

Ignorance of the Law of landlord and tenant has caused suffering and sorrow to either of the parties. The landlord has to know the terms he must include in a tenancy agreement to protect his interest else, if anything untoward happens to the property he is left gaping. If this is the only source of livelihood this could bring about his ruin. The tenant has to know the extent of his rights and obligations hence he finds that after he had invested so much money on the property e.g. altering it to suit his taste or need, he is evicted from it. Both need to know not only the express terms of their agreement but also some presumed or implied covenants which bind them equally.

In this paper, an attempt will be made to go through the various terms that are relevant to the Law of landlord and tenant, the impact of the Land Use Act 1978 and the quality of Estate of the landlord and tenant and capacities of the parties, the various types of tenancy. Both the implied and express covenants by the landlord and the tenant will be visited, and the remedies for breach of the covenant will be discussed.

Finally, enforcement of the remedies will be treated.