The Rent Control Department has attacked various Associations it says have been formed in some areas ostensibly to harass tenants.
“Some Associations sought to bully tenants and that is illegal . Members cheat tenants who are in a dire need of place to sleep ” , Ishmael Essien, Rent Control Officer for the Asante Akyem Central District revealed.
Mr. Essien explained that his office has received enough evidence from tenants in the district to warrant this allegation against landlords and landladies belonging to such groupings.
He accused them of being the reason behind the recent astronomical rise in accommodation problems in Konongo and its environs.
Mr. Essien reckons the formation of such Associations have no place in the Rent Control Act and must be disbanded.
“In the first place, the associations are deemed not fit to fix prices. Our department is responsible for that. How can one be a player and a referee at the same time?”
Addressing stakeholders forum in the District capital Konongo, participants were asked to work collectively with the department to help address the housing deficit in the country .
Organised under the theme “bridging the gap between landlords and tenants”, the landlords and landladies were asked to acquire Certificate of Assessed Rent as a legal backing to operate their businesses.
The landlords were advised to work closely with the department anytime there is a problem between them and tenants.
Mr. Ishmael Essien also asked the house owners to do background checks of prospective tenants before giving them accommodation to enable police trace their whereabouts in case of suspicious activities.
Tenants are also advised to contact any office of the department nationwide to seek information about persons who are offering them accommodation.
The control officer asked all landlords in the district to fill in Certificates of Assessed Rent for them so they can charge the required price prescribed by the law.
The control officer hinted that their trained staff will soon visit the individual homes to assess the kind of utility landlords are giving to tenants to warrant the amount of money paid them.
Landlords and landladies are cheats you say. My experience with my past two landladies tells me that landladies are criminals and liars as well.
My previous landlady has lied to me in writing, was part of a conspiracy to break the law, defy human rights and to cause harm. She refused to allow us to use a garage which we paid for. She refused to give us her address. Initially we had to wait months to get electricity and water connected, however she continued to build two flats behind the house we rented. I guess our rental payment went to the flats rather than to connecting our utilities. She connected our electricity to the flats against our will and it took months until the tenants partly reimbursed us. When we did get water, we allowed poor people to take water free from the outside tap. Our landlady put a lock on the tap so we and the poor people could not use it but gave her builder a key so he could continue to build flats behind us while we paid for the electricity costs for pumping her water. Never did she offer to reimburse us. The landlady blamed my wife for wrecking some plumbing when my wife was trying to unblock the kitchen sink. It turned out that the pipe from the sink ended in a solid block of concrete. The landlady blamed us because pipes to the outside drain were crushed. She said it was our removal truck which did it. She blamed us a year after we moved in but made no mention of the heavy trucks she had to deliver loads of sand and cement. Oh yes, and she is a pastor’s wife. I have lodged a complaint with your office about her..
The landlady before the last, physically assaulted me, emptied her septic tank in the public roadside gutter and blatantly lied to police to have me arrested. Fortunately a chief inspector saw through her, and a video of her physical assault upon me was very clear. She ordered my wife and I not to pray, pulled baby birds from their nest and threw them to the ground, and half alive, through them in the rubbish. She abused us day and night and was a total pain. The landlady claimed property was hers that I had paid for. At times she refused to allow us to get water from the pump near our house thus we had to buy water and carry buckets from up the street. She reported us to CHRAJ and CHRAJ made a decision in our favour and it took the landlady months and months to pay us. Oh yes, then the CHRAJ Officer refused to give us all the money owed to us, even though we had paid him previously to recover the money for us.
Fortunately now we have a landlord, a very decent man.