By Yusuf Kazeem Precious
Estate Surveying and Valuation profession has significantly contributed to Nigeria’s economic growth and development. One of its major contributions to national development is the provision of consultancy services and advice on various types of real estate investments that could be embarked upon, opinion of value on all land and landed properties, plant and machinery, furniture and fixtures, management and maintenance of both public and private real estate facilities and assets. Estate Surveyors and Valuers have been rendering useful advice to the state, organizations and individuals on how best to derive value from investments in real estate sector.
Estate Surveyors and Valuers have also been serving as professional estate agents and brokers to clients on matters relating to land and landed property sales, acquisition and lease, as well as property managers to clients’ properties. In other words, provision of advice to government, organizations, clients, critical stakeholders and professional consultancy to people in the public and private sectors of the economy has been a cardinal point in defining the roles and contributions of the profession to national development. Two elements that made our services to be sought after by both the public and private sectors are training and acquisition of skills and competencies.
However, the profession has been experiencing the distasteful challenge of unregulated entry of quacks into the profession, particularly into estate agency and property management. Section 38(f) of the Estate Surveyors and Valuers (Registration, etc.) Act No. 24 of 1975 (now CAP. E13LFN, 2004) defines the Estate Surveying and Valuation profession as involving the selling, buying, or letting of property as an agent, and legally recognized Estate Surveyors and Valuers as the official practitioners of estate agency services. Unfortunately, the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), which is responsible for registering businesses, classifies estate agency as a general business activity, thereby allowing non-professionals to practice agency. The easy entry of quacks into estate agency is not only undermining the positive impact of qualified Estate Surveyors and Valuers in real estate practice, it is indeed a threat to the continued relevance of professionals in estate agency. Nigeria’s property market is being tarnished by the fraudulent and unethical practices of unlicensed estate agents, otherwise known as quacks who lure buyers and tenants with bogus deals, with the aim of swindling them of their hard earned income and resources.
Real-life experiences show the toll. In Lagos, and in the other major cities in the country, scores of Nigerians have been swindled. A number of prospective tenants would be made to pay different sums of money for apartments that never materialized.The next thing is that the landlord and the agent would vanish, leaving empty flats and an estimated loss of several millions of naira. Investigations revealed that landlords collude with the rogue agents to defraud renters. The agents often exploit buyers’ unfamiliarity with titles and paperwork, using fake sales agreements, forged receipts, fake listings, false promises and outright lies to bilk and exploit victims, selling non-existent properties.
The human cost is severe. Victims often lose life savings or loans, leaving families in financial ruin. These losses brings emotional trauma, stress, disappointment, mental health challenges and strained relationships on top of the hit to savings. Many cannot or find it extremely difficult to pursue actual legal remedies due to legal encumbrance; police and courts are inundated with land-fraud cases.
The Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers in the year 2013 created the Association of Estate Agents in Nigeria (AEAN) to provide regular training and study materials to estate agents, with the aim of ensuring best practices in estate agency, and to checkmate the nefarious activities of non professionals, and their incursion into the practice of estate agency. The Institution aimed at transforming non professionals to real estate professionals.
Apparently irked by the ugly development, Lagos state created Lagos State Real Estate Regulatory Authority (LASRERA) to check the unscrupulous activities of the estate agents, to protect residents from their fraudulent and sharp practices, to sanitize the practice and enforce ethical practice among real estate agents practitioners, and to ensure transparency in the real estate market.
To what extent these noble initiatives have impacted the estate agency practice is a subject of conjecture. Though fraud cases are yet to abet, but undoubtedly, appreciable progress has been made in developing the Estate Agency into a respectable practice in Nigeria.
Going forward, I would like to suggest that Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers, Lagos state government, Estate Surveyors and Valuers Registration Board of Nigeria, and critical stakeholders in the built industry should strengthen and step up efforts at implementing the measures already in place, as these in my candid opinion would significantly reduce or eliminate the influx of quacks into the profession, particularly into real estate agency business. It is crucial to continuously educate the public and all stakeholders in the real estate sector through every available platform about the dangers that quackery poses to estate agency and to the people. The public should be made aware of the roles and significance of Estate Surveyors and Valuers in the real estate market.
•Yusuf is a Lagos based Estate Surveyor and Valuer
