How to avoid a Lagos rent scam

The short answer

Do not pay anything, to anyone, until you have established who owns the property and confirmed that the person collecting your money is authorised by them. Every other rule here is a version of that one.

The four scams you will actually meet

1. The inspection fee mill. An "agent" charges each prospective tenant a fee to be shown properties. The properties are unavailable, unsuitable, or already let. The business collects inspection fees from twenty people a week rather than letting flats. Inspection fees are normal in Lagos; a large one, demanded before you have seen a single address, is the tell.
2. The agent who does not represent the landlord. A real flat, a real viewing, a person with keys who has no authority to let it. Often a caretaker, a former agent, or somebody who borrowed keys. You pay, you move in, and the actual owner appears.
3. The multiple let. The same flat let to several tenants in the same week, each paying a year up front. This is why deposits get taken in cash or into personal accounts and why the pressure to pay today is so intense.
4. The bait property. Photographs of a much better flat than the one you are shown, with the switch explained on the day as "that one has just gone, but I have something similar". The similar one is the whole business.

Establishing ownership

• Ask to see the landlord's title documents and take photographs of them. Depending on the property you may be shown a Certificate of Occupancy, a Deed of Assignment, or a Governor's Consent. You are not doing a legal title search yourself; you are establishing that documents exist and that the name on them matches the person being presented as owner.
• Meet the landlord, or speak to them directly by phone on a number you did not get from the agent alone. An agent who will not let you speak to the owner at any point before payment is the single strongest warning sign in Lagos letting.
• Ask the neighbours. Free, fast, and remarkably effective. Who owns this building, who was living here, why did they leave, does the water run. People in the compound will tell you things no document will.
• For anything substantial, pay a lawyer to check the title. Against a year's rent in Lagos, a property lawyer's fee is small. Use your own lawyer, not one introduced by the agent.
• Check whether the agent is registered. Lagos State operates a regulatory authority for real estate practitioners. Registration does not guarantee honesty. An agent who is registered has an identity and an address attached to their trading name, and an unregistered one may not.

Understand what you are being charged

Lagos rent is quoted as a headline figure and then followed by a stack of additions. Ask for the complete list, in writing, before you agree to anything, and expect to see some combination of agency fee, legal or agreement fee, caution or damage deposit, and service charge.

Two questions matter more than the individual numbers. What is the total I am paying today? And which of these do I get back, under what conditions? A A caution deposit you cannot recover is a fee with a friendlier name.

Before you sign

• Read the tenancy agreement, including the renewal terms. How much notice, whose responsibility for repairs, what happens to the rent at renewal.
• Photograph everything on the day you take keys. Every room, every existing crack, the meter reading, the state of the plumbing. This is what a caution deposit dispute is decided on a year later.
• Test the things that ruin a year. Water pressure at the taps, whether the estate has a working borehole, how power is supplied and metered, whether the road floods. Visit once in the evening and, if you can, once after heavy rain.

If it has already gone wrong

Report to the police and get a report reference, notify your bank in writing the same day if you transferred money, and keep every message. Where an agent is registered with the state authority there is a complaints route through it. Where a company is involved, the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission handles consumer complaints.

Ranked can correct or remove wrong listing information and pass on a documented complaint. We are not a party to a tenancy and cannot recover money, and we say so in our reporting flow.

Bottom line

Ownership first, money second, in that order and never reversed. Speak to the landlord. Pay into a named account. Get an itemised receipt. Photograph the flat on day one. The people who lose a year's rent in Lagos almost always knew these rules and were persuaded that this one time there was no time.