Speeches

2nd Stakeholders' Meeting On Documentation/Registration Of Sub-Leases By Allotees Of State Government Housing Agencies (MOH, LSDPC AND LBIC)

Mar 18, 2010 - I am very delighted to be at this second meeting with you, the Allottees of Housing Units in the Estates of Lagos State Government Housing Agencies, coming up a little over one month after the first meeting of Friday, 12th, 2010. February

What we are gathered here to do today is a major milestone in our journey towards alleviating poverty and delivering a brighter and rewarding future.

One of the ten-point Agenda of the administration of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu which this administration is pursuing with vigour is Wealth Creation and Poverty alleviation.

Many of you have at one time or the other tried to raise money to finance your business, buy a car, or even another home or discharge some financial commitment only to be told by the bank, financial institution or creditor that you have no collateral.

The truth is that while those creditors are correct, it does not mean that you are poor or not worthy of credit. It simply means that your assets, your shops, your flats and other landed properties are not held in the prescribed form that the bank will accept. So your assets are in a manner of speaking, dead.

What we are here to do today is to wake up your dead assets, put them in the prescribed form, transfer them from mere allocation letters to title deeds that are stamped, registered and traceable, that will create collateral and bring you to a new world of wealth.

Therefore, shortly after assumption of office in 2007, this Government among other things embarked upon a two-pronged Project, Le. Title Documentation and Registration of the Titles of all Allottees in Government Housing Schemes in Lagos State. This project or initiative of Government can be itemized as follows:-

i. Harmonizing the processes of Perfection of Sub-lease title documents issued to Allottees of Housing Units in all Government Housing Estates in Lagos in order to create a uniform procedure and to encompass the usual rights of Parties in the Documents of Title issued to the Allottees.

This first phase of our initiative has since been completed.

ii. Bearing in mind the normal expense which Registration of Title Documents may involve and not forgetting that many of the Allottees, particularly those who bought several years ago are now old and retired, Government decided to embark on the second Phase of the initiative, which is to encourage the Allottees to come forward, obtain their title deeds and Register them at the Lands Registry, at a considerably reduced lumpsum payment.

It is this second phase of the project that I am about to kick off today, and to announce shortly, the Concessionary Charges payable by the Allottees for the purpose of registering their Titles.

Ladies and Gentlemen, as I pointed out earlier, the Allottees that Government is o-ffering this reduction in payable fees, are those who have had their allocations for several years (some of them, according to our records for example; the Akerele, Bank Olemoh and Surulere Schemes, have had their allocations for over 50 (fifty) years without perfecting their titles.

Therefore, this concession is being made available to such Allottees in Government Housing Estates whether Low Cost, Medium or High income Housing Estates, who received their letters of allocation on or before 31 st day of December, 1999. This is being done to take care of several years of backlog cases we have on this issue.

Under this Government initiative, the Forms and the Sub-lease documents are to be obtained FREE at the Housing Agency (Ministry of Housing (MOH), Lagos State Development Property Corporation (LSDPC) or Lagos Building Investment Corporation (LBIC)) where the Allottee bought the property, or the Agency presently managing the particular Estate.

An Allottee will therefore only be required to pay the following fee (lumpsum), if such an Allottee is within the above cut-off period, depending on the type of Estate:

(i) Low income - N10,000.00
(ii) Medium Income - N15,000.00
(iii)High income - N20,000.00

It may interest you to know that over 22,000 (Twenty Two Thousand) Allottees are within the above cut off period, therefore creating immediately 22,000 (Twenty Two Thousand) assets owners in this economy, who can access credit and who can support their own businesses.

A new dawn really has come upon our State.

Therefore, this concession period for Registration will last for a period of Ninety (90) days commencing from Thursday, April 15, 2010 and ending on Thursday July 15, 2010.

Let me stress that there are no hidden charges and you must refuse to make any other payment except the lump sum stated to apply to your class of estate. The SSA - Lands, Mr. Ololade Aina who can be reached on 08033041486 will continuously attend to any enquires and resolve any challenges to make this exercise painless and hitch free.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have been told at our first Stakeholders' meeting of the various benefits of this project and fliers were given to us itemizing them.

I welcome all the beneficiaries to a new dawn of prosperity and a brighter and rewarding future.

Thank you.

Eko o ni baje o

Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN
Governor of Lagos State