10 Ways the New Lagos Tenancy Bill Will Affect You If It Becomes Law

A new tenancy bill is currently making its way through the Lagos State House of Assembly, and if it is signed into law, it will represent the most significant overhaul of the state’s rental market in a generation. The bill takes direct aim at practices that have been normalised for decades: advance rent collection, opaque agency fees, arbitrary evictions, and unwritten agreements that leave tenants with no legal ground to stand on.

This law will completely disrupt the status quo for both landlords and tenants. Whether you own property, rent one, or are simply hoping to find somewhere affordable to live in Lagos, here is exactly how it will affect you.

1.  Mandatory Monthly or Quarterly Payments

If you have ever had to raise two years’ rent in one shot just to secure an apartment, this provision is perhaps the most immediately life-changing in the entire bill.

The proposed legislation seeks to outlaw the widely normalised practice of collecting rent annually, let alone in multi-year lump sums. Under the new framework, landlords would be legally required to accept rent on either a monthly or quarterly basis, bringing Lagos into alignment with global rental market norms.

2. Strict Penalties for Demanding More Than the Legal Limit

Even within a monthly or quarterly payment structure, some landlords will still be tempted to demand several months upfront. The bill anticipates this and draws a hard line.

Specific caps on advance rent payments are expected to be enshrined in the legislation, with punitive consequences including fines and legal liability for landlords who demand beyond the permitted amount. The bill is also expected to empower tenants to report violations without fear of retaliatory eviction.

3. Regulated Agency and Legal Fees

Nigerian tenants are very familiar with the cost of moving into a new apartment. The infamous 10% agency fee and 10% legal fee are almost always included in property listings. The fees are both charged on the total annual rent, on top of the rent itself. On a 2 million Naira per year apartment, that is an additional 400,000 Naira paid to an agent and a lawyer before you have spent a single night in the place.

The new bill is expected to regulate these fees aggressively. Whether through a flat cap, a percentage ceiling lower than the current norm, or a clearer definition of what services must be rendered to justify these charges, the legislation signals that the days of agents collecting fees for little more than unlocking a door are numbered.

4. Legal Limits on How Much and How Often Rent Can Rise

In the current Lagos market, a landlord can increase rent by any amount at the end of a lease period. There is no law stopping a 50% hike between one tenancy and the next. Many tenants have experienced exactly this, often with little notice and no room to negotiate.

The proposed bill is expected to introduce a regulated rent review mechanism, limiting both the frequency and the percentage by which a landlord can increase rent within a given period. Provisions may tie permissible increases to inflation indices or require a minimum period between reviews.

For tenants, this means greater housing security and the ability to plan long-term finances without the looming threat of an unaffordable increase. For landlords, it requires a shift away from using rent hikes as a primary investment return mechanism, pushing them instead toward property quality improvements and longer-term tenant relationships.

5. Extended, Stricter Notice Periods Before a Tenant Can Be Removed

Landlords have been known to change locks, remove roofing, or cut utility access to force out tenants they want gone. Even where legal processes are followed, notice periods under existing law can be disturbingly short.

The new bill proposes to significantly extend statutory notice periods and make the eviction process more formally structured. Depending on the length of tenancy, tenants could be entitled to 30, 60, or even 90 days’ notice before they are required to vacate, with clear legal remedies available if a landlord attempts to bypass the process.

However, this does not protect tenants who default on rent without cause, but it ensures that those who have honoured their agreements cannot be thrown out on a whim or for illegitimate reasons. Landlords, in turn, will need to plan ahead and follow due process, even when they have every legal right to end a tenancy.

6. Clear Legal Restrictions on When a Landlord Can Enter Your Home

Many tenants live with the quiet anxiety that their landlord might enter the property at any time to inspect, intimidate, or harm them.

The bill is expected to establish clear rules around landlord access. Entering a rented property without reasonable prior notice, except in genuine emergencies, would become a legal violation. Tenants would have the right to refuse entry and seek redress if that right is breached.

7.  Maintenance and Repairs Accountability

Currently, the division of responsibility for repairs in a Nigerian rental is determined almost entirely by the landlord’s goodwill. The burden of maintenance and repairs usually falls on tenants.

The bill proposes to draw a clear legal distinction between structural repairs, which would be the landlord’s responsibility, and minor day-to-day maintenance, which would fall to the tenant. Both parties would have enforceable obligations.

This means landlords can no longer let roofs cave in while collecting rent, and tenants cannot claim the landlord is responsible for every broken handle. It professionalises the relationship and gives both parties a legal baseline against which to measure their obligations.

8. Security Deposit Safety

The proposed bill is expected to introduce an escrow-like framework for security deposits. Landlords who make deductions from deposits would be required to provide itemised justification.

For tenants, this alone could recover millions of naira annually that currently disappear into informal disputes. For landlords, it introduces accountability.

9. Eliminating Informal Tenancy Agreements

This seems like an obvious step which should have already been taken, but landlords and tenants still engage in informal agreements — sometimes unwritten.

The new bill is expected to mandate written tenancy agreements as a legal requirement, with digital documentation explicitly recognised as valid. Both parties would be required to sign and retain copies, with specified minimum clauses that must appear in every agreement.

10. Specialised Tenancy Tribunals

Even when a tenant or landlord in Lagos has a clear legal case, the journey through the regular court system is enough to deter most people from pursuing it.

To solve this, the bill proposes the establishment of dedicated Tenancy Tribunals. These tribunals would have a narrow jurisdiction focused specifically on tenancy matters, allowing them to operate with greater speed than an overburdened High Court.

This bill leans heavily in favour of tenants, and deliberately so. It addresses a market in which the power imbalance has been almost entirely on the side of property owners, and it introduces protections that many renters  have never had access to.

The bill is not anti-landlord. It also gives property owners clear, enforceable frameworks for dealing with problematic tenants, defined maintenance obligations, regulated deposit processes, and accessible dispute resolution.