When Mrs. Oluwafunmilayo Ogunnaike-Bello, a subscriber to one of the Lekki Gardens Estate scheme, signed the dotted lines for a three-bedroom apartment, she was confident that her dream of owning a comfortable home with ease has materialised.
With firm commitment to the project, Ogunnaike-Bello had paid up the N20 million asking price for the apartment, exclusive of VAT/Withholding tax- paid by the Purchaser to Lekki Gardens (Vendor), leading to the signing of an agreement between the parties on September 18, 2013. But this date seeme to have been the last happy moment for the buyer in the transaction.
According to her, the first infraction by the Vendor is on the specified period for delivery. As contained in the agreement in Section 2.3, the Vendor shall “deliver the property in Shell-Unit specifications as listed in the first schedule not later than 14 months effective from 18/09/2013.”
This means that by November 17, 2014, the house ought to have been delivered to the Purchaser. It however took two years and five months after the deadline before Ogunnaike-Bello could get her apartment, precisely on March 29, 2017.
Her disappointment has been further fuelled as the Vendor, she maintained, has failed to adhere to the provisions for default / remedy as contained in the agreement. Specifically, Section 4 (i) of the agreement says that “where the Vendor defaults in the delivery of the property, it shall pay a monthly penalty fee of 0.7 percent interest on the total instalment received from the Purchaser not exceeding three months thereafter within which delivery shall be made without which the Purchaser shall determine the Agreement and all money paid by the purchaser shall be due and payable in 12 weeks.”
Yet, the delivery of the apartment, Block D2, Flat 5, Horizon II Extension, Lekki Gardens Estate, to the Purchaser, Ogunnaike-Bello said, has been anything but satisfactory. For instance, before she finally got the keys to the house, the Purchaser said the Vendor made her to pay N250,000 for “water connection” to the apartment. A copy of the Zenith Bank teller, number 4036118, with which the payment was made to the Vendor, dated March 28, 2017, and acknowledged by a certain Adenekan Adebola on behalf of the Vendor, was sighted by The Nation.
The elder sibling of the Purchaser, Mr. Olarigbigbe Bello, interfaces with Lekki Gardens on behalf of his sister when she is not available. Bello told The Nation that it has not been a palatable experience dealing with the Vendor. He regretted that, after making full payments, and in spite of the several correspondence to, and meetings with, the Vendor, the situation has remained the same.
“Imagine that the developer failed to connect the apartment to electricity; neither has the entire apartment been connected to water supply even though they collected N250,000 for this from us; this money they demanded was not in anyway contained in the original agreement. We asked them for electrical wires so we could do our connections, but they failed to supply same; only a part of the apartment has water now, like in the kitchen water is not flowing. Its such a shame of a job done,” a bitter Bello said. He added that even the spiral step fitter at the back of the building is anything but beautiful.
He further explained that he complained to a staff of the Vendor, Mr. Sunday Adeyanju, who is the facility manager, but nothing has been done.
When The Nation contacted Adeyanju on phone last Monday, he confirmed receiving the complaints about the apartment from Bello. He also said he had since forwarded the complaints to his line manager for further action.
“Yes I got their complaints, and I have followed protocol by sending same to my line manager. I am awaiting further directive from my boss,” Adeyanju told The Nation in a telephone chat.
Bello listed other defaults by the Vendor to include failure to do the electrical works in the flat; non painting of the apartment and non fitting of POP ceiling, all contained in the First Schedule which specified what the Shell Unit of the house will contain. Under the second schedule, Bello said the Vendor was in default of providing electricity in the flat; failure to connect the drainage and gutters appropriately leading to heavy flooding in the block and estate in May/June this year; and failure to provide clinic and school.
At the onset of this development, precisely June 2017, The Nation contacted the Indigo PR, the communications and public relations consultants to Lekki Gardens, for clarification on the incident. Its Managing Director, Mr. Bolaji Abimbola, appealed for time on behalf of his client, assuring the Purchaser and her proxy that he had the assurances of his clients that the needful would be done. “Please give my clients till August 2017 ending, that is two months from now, and everything will be sorted out. My clients are very credible people and they will work on the Purchaser’s observation,” he had assured.
However, two months after the appeal for extension, the story has remained the same, as the Vendor has not done anything to improve the apartment it collected N20 million for.
According to Abimbola, there was delay in delivering the house to Ogunnaike_Bello due to some circumstances. He explained that the company apologised to the customer in question. “As you may be aware, the company had a crisis recently and work on all our sites was stopped for a while by the regulatory agency, but we have since returned to work and committed to deliver homes to all our customers. On this note, we would like to seek her understanding,” Abimbola explained.
However, his position on this was carpeted by Bello. “The apartment ought to have been delivered in November 2014- a clear one year and four months before the Lekki Gardens building collapse of March 8, 2016, which the company is now trying to use as an excuse for the delay,” he said.
On the N250, 000 fee, Abimbola explained this as the connection fee for infrastructure like water, drainage, sewage and electricity, which he said is not peculiar to the customer, but charged all apartment owners in the estate. “The fee is not extra payment and it is usually paid at the point of key collection,” he explained. Again Bello disagreed on this, claiming that such was not indicated in the agreement signed. “This is fraud and deceit; why didn’t they include this in the agreement we signed, only for them to change the goal post not in the middle of a match but at the end? So are they saying they would deliver a house with basic infrastructure like water without the payment? he asked rhetorically.
Abimbola explained that the developer is currently working to connect all the block of flats in the estate to electricity supply, assuring that it would be completed in a “couple of weeks.” While He explained further that the company is only responsible for the painting of the exterior of the blocks while the customers are expected to do the finishing of their unit to their taste. He said the estate was built with adequate drainage plan but the recent rising of water levels and the impact of other construction work around the area was responsible for the flooding.
“In a nutshell, we would like to appeal to her for understanding as we would ensure that we resolve all the issues,” Abimbola pleaded.
For now, Ogunnaike-Bello said the option before her is to institute litigation against the Vendor, and ensure that every breach in the agreement is addressed accordingly.
