Farmer and Entrepreneur, John Dumelo, has called out landlords who demand two years arrears from tenants.
According to him, this is an exploitation of tenants who already are battling with the high cost of living in the country.
In a Twitter post, John wrote, “Dear Landlords, stop collecting 2 years rent advance for residential properties. Stop saying “but how do we make our money back after building?”. You want to make your money back by breaking the law? Stop exploiting innocent tenants!”
Meanwhile, Section 25 (5) states that “Any person who as a condition of the grant, renewal or continuance of a tenancy demand in the case of a monthly or shorter tenancy, the payment in advance of more than a month’s rent or in the case of a tenancy exceeding six months, the payment in advance of more than six months’ rent, shall be guilty of an offence and upon conviction be liable to a fine not exceeding 500 penalty units which is equivalent to 600cedis or a term of imprisonment not exceeding two years.”
However, the Public Relations Officer of the Rent Control Department, Emmanuel Hovey Kporsu, has stated that landlords are not mandated by law to take more than six months’ rent from prospective tenants.
President Akufo Addo has also bemoaned the increasing cost of housing in Ghana currently.
Speaking to some members of the Construction Chamber, the president said, “If we are going to be able to deal with the infrastructure deficit in our country, apart from roads, we have a deficit in our housing, 1.8 million units of housing that we need, a critical aspect of it is our ability to build houses cheaply.
“We cannot continue to ignore the expensive methods of construction that has made housing here virtually a monopoly of the rich, it shouldn’t be the case."
Read the tweet below:
Credit: Ghanaweb
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