Landwey Exploitation Forces Lagos Homeowners to Rent Transformer for N2.5m Monthly

Homeowners at the Urban Prime One Estate in Ajah, Lagos, have accused Landwey Investment Limited, a real estate company, of exploitation and mismanagement of the Urban Prime Estates resulting in harsh living conditions.

Truetells Nigeria understands that among other challenges, that repeated service failings forced these estate residents to start paying N2.5 million every month for a rented transformer.

John Doe (a pseudonym), an Urban Prime One Estate resident, told FIJ that the company significantly raised service charges from N330,000 to N400,000 in December 2021 and refused to listen to the protesting residents because the estate had not been fully occupied.

The resident said that after the available homeowners paid the N400,000, they asked for a breakdown of how the money was spent but the facility management struggled to give them an account. At this point, he said, the residents concluded it was better to get a facility management company to manage the estate, but they weren’t successful.

In a write-up by the homeowners association in the estate, after a stakeholders’ meeting between Landwey and all residents available in January 2022, a resident suggested the registration of homeowners for proper representation but this was dismissed by Landwey management. They claimed that, until the estate had 75% occupancy, they could not form an association.

“On further investigation by the residents, it was discovered that a resident association had been formed seven months before the stakeholders met with the trio Ayilara Olawale, Chairman of the board of trustees, Sola Bello, a trustee, and Sjibomi, a trustee,” the write-up reads.

“After this discovery, it was brought to the notice of Landwey; they were duly informed by the estate representatives as of then that Landwey cannot register an association on behalf of the residents, especially when they had the chance to acknowledge its existence but chose to lie.”

Doe pointed out that the Landwey-led facility management wanted to increase the service charge from N400,000 to N720,000 in 2023 but residents requested a budget of what it consisted of. Instead, they said residents must pay N120,000 for the water outside service charge because a company owned it.

Doe also mentioned that, after the transformer for Urban Prime One and Two stopped working in September 2023, the management of the estate, a subsidiary of Landwey, could not get them a new transformer or money to buy diesel despite collecting money for a dual tariff.

He said that Landwey brought back a transformer in November after the residents had managed to power their houses by renting a transformer. The residents asked Landwey to give them a 10-year warranty that the transformer would work with, but they said they could only get for one year, Doe said.

“By March this year, the transformer packed up again. Since then, we have been renting transformers for N2.5 million every month till now. The electricity tariff is so expensive and everyone is complaining,” Doe told FIJ.

Doe also accused Olawale Ayilara, Landwey CEO, of intimidating residents of the estate with police officers. According to Doe, Ayilara does this while boasting that no one can do anything to him.

“Sometimes he’d cut off water supply. Other times, he makes us live in constant fear. He said we could go and report him because there’s nothing anyone can do to him. The Divisional Police Officer (DPO) at Ogombo Police Station is tired of us because we go there to settle issues every time,” he told FIJ.

When FIJ called Landwey’s lines displayed on its website on Thursday, they did not connect.

FIJ sent an SMS to one of the lines and a WhatsApp message to the other, but neither received a response. At press time, Landwey had also not responded to FIJ’s email.