Tenant right refers to what is due the tenant by law. A tenancy agreement is usually issued in the course of renting a property and this usually contains in full detail the obligation of the landlord to the tenant and vice versa. It is a vital part of the transaction and as a tenant, you have to do your due diligence by taking time to read and understand the agreement (or you may wish to consult a lawyer on this), because once you sign the dotted lines, you are bound by it and ignorance of the law is not an excuse. Also, the landlord must give the tenant sufficient time to go through the terms of the tenancy agreement and raise any questions and concerns they might have before signing.

The second part of this article is going to focus solely on what the rights of a tenant is according to what the law stipulates, as regards eviction from a property.

As a tenant, it is your right to be given adequate notice to quit if the owner wishes to repossess his property. According to the law, the notice to quit is what puts an end to the tenancy and the rule governing this is usually included in the tenancy agreement, The Law honours the agreement between both parties and even if it limits your right, you will be bound by it. However, when this isn’t expressly stated in the tenancy agreement, the law states that a month notice is given for a monthly tenancy and a 6 month notice be given for a yearly tenancy. After the expiration of the notice to quit given and the tenant is still in possession of the property, then the law directs that an additional 7 days notice of the intention of the owner to repossess property be issued before the landlord can validly institute an action for the re-entry into his premises.

The issue of backdated notices has been employed by landlords as one of their several tricks in trying to get a tenant off their property. According to what the law dictates, a notice begins to read from the day it is received by the tenant. Where there is a verified proof that the Landlord backdated the Notice to quit, then that notice is invalid and the Court will not act on it. One good way of proving this is to sign the date of the receipt of the quit notice on the landlords duplicate copy and on yours. If there is no evidence, the Court might be tempted to believe the landlord.

Some landlords have been known to resort to the use of force in ejecting a tenant, otherwise known as self-help. They make use of thugs or policemen to threaten and intimidate the tenant into moving out, this is unlawful. If this happens, the tenant can take the landlord to court and sue him for damages and threat to life, the only right way to get a tenant out of your house is to go to court.

The 1999 constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria states that all persons in the country have rights to a fair hearing. This means that even if your landlord takes you to court, the court has to hear from you before passing judgment except in a situation where the tenant has been invited to court a number of times and was a no-show. Also you have the right to sue your landlord if he does not follow the due process.