Rent Control and Free Market Economy: The Nigerian Experience

Abstract

The paper examined rent control and free market economy with expositions on the Nigerian experience. Information for the paper were sourced from secondary origin. In essence the literature examination came from extant works. The findings of the paper reveal that rent is a requirement for a contractual tenancy, where it is a contractual obligation of the tenant to pay it. The paper also reveals that under the Rent Control and Recovery of Premises Laws, a statutory rent is the profit or compensation paid as a consideration for the possession of land or premises during a tenancy. It also serves as an acknowledgement of landlord and tenant relationship between the landlord and the tenant. The paper accentuates that a free market economy is the one in which prices of items -goods and services are determined by the operations of demand and supply. The paper found that government does not subsidize the supply of housing and allied materials and that makes it very difficult to implement the rent control enactments in Nigeria. The paper insists that the dearth of successful cases on rent control in Nigeria has given credence to the fact that rent control cannot smoothly exist in a free market economy. Therefore, the submission and recommendation of this paper is that rent control cannot exist in a free market economy like Nigeria.