Lekki Gardens has refused to give subscriber his property after paying N42.5 million.
A Nigerian entrepreneur resident in Lagos has accused the real estate firm, which rebranded as Meridian Lux Park Limited after several battles with customers and the Lagos State government, of refusing to hand over his property to him despite paying them in full.
Speaking to press the subscriber while narrating his ordeal in the hands of the company lamented bitterly what he has passed through in recent times trying to get what exactly has gone wrong.
He said he subscribed in Paradise Court Estate in January 2021 and up till now, the estate is yet to be delivered, his money tied down with no response whatsoever from the developers of the estate.
“In 2020, I was introduced to Paradise Court on Orchid Road by Chevron, to purchase a 5-bedroom fully detached duplex at the rate of N42,500,000. By January 2021, I made my first installment of N16,000,000 and an offer letter was immediately presented to me with an arrangement of paying the balance sum which is N26,510,000 in installment which comes down to paying N6,627,500 on a quarterly basis.
Furthermore, a Providus Bank account name of Meridian Lux Park Limited was provided for all payments and from time to time, I was making my payments accordingly till early 2022.
Tunde said further, “Between March and April 2022, the company started calling for the last installment of the money as they claimed they needed the money to finish up the eEstate development and unfailingly deliver by the last quarter of 2022. Due to the pressure, I paid my last installment sometime in May 2022, and I was looking forward to the delivery of the estate as discussed.
“When I subscribed in January, 2021, I was told the project will take 15 months to deliver. End of March 2023 makes it exactly one year the company promised to deliver the estate. To the surprise of many of the subscribers, the company has refused to deliver the estate as promised and they have also refused to reach out to me even when I have fully paid. All my efforts to reach them has failed.
“This matter affects many other customers. And very worrisome is the fact that marketers and staffers of the company have nothing to explain to the customers on why the project has remained stagnated and workers working at the site withdrawn without any explanation since 2022.
By October 2022 when I visited the site, what I saw on ground did not point to the fact that the project would be delivered before the end of 2022. On reaching out to the company’s representatives, I was told there was nothing to worry about as the project would be delivered as agreed. So, I left and was waiting for an update from the developer.
“By the time I returned to the site in December 2022, the site had been covered by the developers and a step further to see what was going on inside showed that nobody was actually working within the premises anymore other than the security men manning the gate of the uncompleted estate. My further findings from certain people within the area showed the workers had downed tools early December, 2022 and they have not returned to site.
“After my visit to the site, I decided to visit the Lekki Gardens office on Chevron Drive, one of the staffers whom I was directed to interface with me said she would escalate and interface with the technical team and notify me of when the project will be delivered. I waited for a week and when there was no response from Lekki Gardens, I decided to visit the Chevron Drive office again and met the same lady who kept appealing to me without any tangible thing to say since the last time we met.
“With that development in mind, I knew something was wrong and the developer, Lekki Gardens were only trying to manage the situation and were not ready to explain what exactly was going on. After this development, I decided to visit the head office of Lekki Gardens which is located on 27, Banana Island Road to probably meet the managing director, Mr. Tony Nyong. All efforts to reach him proved abortive as I was told by one of his staff that he was not available.
“Since then, I have visited the Banana Island office of Mr. Richard Nyong to have an audience with him but all efforts have proved abortive as his staff have started avoiding my calls including the account manager named Adaobi Agu.
“Mr. Richard Nyong has refused to deliver on his promises to his customers who purchased various fully detached apartments at the Paradise Court, off Orchid Road by Chevron, Lekki.
As part of our fact-finding The Witness fact-finding mission, our correspondent contacted Lekki Gardens for its reaction to the development. The company through its public relations agency, Integrated Indigo Limited, however, denied abandoning the project and remained silent on the new delivery timeline.
According to the company, “We want to state that there is no foulplay and that construction work is ongoing at the Orchid 1 project you referenced. We are working tirelessly to ensure completion and handover to our esteemed customers.
“To verify this, we invite your media organization to visit the site for a first-hand assessment of ongoing work. Kindly confirm a convenient date and time for the visit.
“On the delivery date, we would need to know the particular customer in reference to determine the delivery period, as subscribers have different delivery timelines based on their payment terms.
“We want to assure our esteemed customers that we are working round the clock to complete and deliver the project and remain committed to our relationship with them.”
The company’s response, however, contradicts findings as our correspondents who visited the site on Monday 28th and Tuesday 29th, 2023 confirmed that the project had been abandoned since December 2022.
Lekki Gardens linked to N9.9m fraud allegation in estate deal
ON September 17, 2018, Zakari Uthman and his wife Aishat walked up to the corporate office of Paradise Estate, Abuja, with the dream of owning a house.
Prior to the visit, the couple had visited one of the firm’s project sites at Idu Sabo, a suburb in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Being a homeowner in the nation’s capital is mostly considered a rare feat and a lifetime dream for many residents.
The couple had spent over a decade paying high rents in a highbrow area of Abuja. So, it is only reasonable to want to seek an end to rent payment. They resolved to buy the property using the wife’s name, Aishat Olajumoke Balogun.
The couple eventually made a N5 million part payment for a three-bedroom Maisonette Duplex at the Paradise Estate in September 17, 2018.
The entire project cost was N9.9 million. And they were subsequently issued an offer letter to that effect.
Four months after, precisely January 3, 2019, the couple made the second tranche payment of N4.9 million.
These payments completed the total project cost. The project’s initial delivery date was scheduled for December 31, 2019, but it was later shifted. Now, the due date has been shifted more than five times in three years. And as of the time of filing this report, the couple was yet to get their property.
“…We have not only lost money that could have accrued on the mutual funds we liquidated at 12 per cent to quickly pay off the initial money but also took a facility at 27 per cent to complete the payment with the hope that by the end of 2019, we will no longer have to pay rent,” Balogun said.
Other subscribers for the property in Paradise Estate have been confronted with this shocking reality.
On Friday, March 11, The ICIR obtained footage of aggrieved clients who stormed the firm’s office to protest over issues regarding their land titles.
“Give us our money…we will make sure the world hears our cries. We don’t have money but we will continue to make noise for the world to know…they are 419ers.”
Also, four years earlier, in August 2018, the Association of House Owners and Residents (AHOAR), led by Samson Oche, held a similar protest against the same property firm owned by Lekki Homes. This time, the house owners protested over poor job delivery and non-issuance of house titles, among other concerns.
Some inscriptions read: “where is our title document Richard, we are tired of your deceits,” “Our roofs are giving way with the slightest rainstorm.”
“We have been promised for three weeks from the date of handover of our units to receive our title documents but three years down the lane, it’s been stories upon stories,” Oche said.
Ogbugo Ukoha was among the protesters. As of the date of demonstration, he had lived on the estate for more than a year but was more concerned about the land title. He told the News Agency of Nigeria the property kept selling despite having litigations hanging on the property.
He said the Federal High Court, Abuja had earlier issued a judgment against the Paradise Estate in favour of a third party, yet continued to sell to ignorant members of the public.
“The developer sold the property to everyone off-plan…surprisingly, after having paid, we discovered that they have been in court for the last, probably, five years during which he was selling and still assuring the owner of the place.
“By February, the FCT High Court gave a judgment against paradise having gotten this land through a third party, which means those of us who bought have been deceived into buying an asset we don’t own.”
The ICIR‘s check shows that Ukoha is an Executive Director, Distribution Systems, Storage and Retailing Infrastructure at the Nigerian Midstream and Downstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority (NMDPRA). But, he could not be reached as of the time of filing this report to further find out if some of the concerns have been resolved as of date.
On Friday, April 8, this reporter visited his office at the NMDPRA but was denied entry access.