Abuja Landlord, Tenant In Court Over N1.4m Two Years House Rent

A landlord in Abuja has dragged one of his tenants to court over claims of non-payment of two years rents.

One Mr Benjamin A, who owns a property at Garki Abuja sued one of his tenants, Nwadike E., at the Chief Magistrate Court, Wuse Zone 2, alleging that the tenant had refused to pay his accrued two years rent of N1.4 million.

The case was heard at court room 7.

Samuel U. who represented the plaintiff brought a witness, Blessing Ugwu, to testify against the tenant.

In her testimony, Ms. Blessing claimed that the tenant was owing for two years and she, being a consultant for the landlord, had instructions to institute legal actions against him.

“I’m an Estate surveyor at Triple H Plaza, Wuye ABUJA and Mr. Nwadike is my tenant…

“The landlord Mr Benjamin, gave us instructions to manage his property at Garki, Abuja.

“The reason why I am here is because of my tenant, Nwadike who occupies two bedroom flat, House 2 Jeba, Garki (700,000 naira yearly).

“His tenancy commenced on 20 March 2019 and expired 28 March 2020 and since then he has not paid any rent…and we served him 7 days quit notice twice…

“After pleading with the defendant to pay us the rent, he willfully refused to pay his debt and that is why we instructed our lawyer to carry out the matter.

“We paid legal fee of 200,000 naira to Legal World Chambers, and there is a receipt to that effect,” she said.

Meanwhile, Nwadike urged the court to not admit the receipt and other documents because his name was not spelt correctly and that the name of his landlord was not on some of the documents.

But the Magistrate overruled his submission, adding that that was not enough proof to reject the documents.

She admitted the quit notice, receipt of payment of legal fees, among others as exhibit.

Subsequently, the defendant urged the court to adjourn to May 4 for him to cross examine the witness.

That was granted by the court.