•Write to demand interest payment, says developer
A United States based family – Mrs Olubukola Akande and Mr Oluyomibo Olaniyan has petitioned the Lagos State government over an alleged breach of agreement by Landwey Investment Limited on purchase of a three-bedroom terrace duplex.
The couple is demanding for interest payment as a result of loss of value after the developer held on to their money for over 20 months without delivery of property.
Responding to the matter, an official of LandWey Investment Limited, Chinonye Agwuncha, said the client should officially write through a lawyer to notify Landwey of the new request of interest payment.
The family explained that on February 11, 2022, they applied to Landwey Investment Limited to purchase one of their residential properties at the Onyx Urban Prime Three Phase Two along Ogombo Road.
After the application was submitted to Landwey, an offer letter dated February 15, 2022, was given to them for purchase of a three-bedroom terrace duplex at the estate.
In a petition letter signed by Akande, the offer letter has the property priced at N54.7 million plus N2 million corner property making a total cost of N56.7million with a N10,000,000 initial deposit.
“We signed the offer letter on the same day February 15, 2022, and emailed back to Landwey. On February 18, and February 21, 2022, N5 million each was transferred to Landwey Keystone Bank account as an initial deposit for an offer for the property. We received a letter of acknowledgement for the N10m payment on March 2, 2022. On March 3, 2022 Landwey gave us a contract of sale of building and homeowner agreement, which we signed on March 14, 2022, and emailed back to Landwey.
“Part of the contract agreement is that after a 50 per cent down payment has been received by Landwey, the building of our residential property will begin. Due to this fact we gathered money together and completed the 50 per cent payment of N26,450m on March 19, 2022,” she said.
According to her, on April 4, 2022, the family received an email with the provisional allocation for a three-bedroom terrace corner piece at House II, Indigo Street.
She said, since a 50 per cent payment had been made in March of 2022, the family has been requesting an update on their property and a lot of unfulfilled promises have been made. “At first, the initial completion date was stated to be nine months from the date 50 per cent payment was made which will put us in December 2022 completion.
“Then we were told that due to COVID-19 pandemic, the completion date for our section of the property will be June 2023. Then, it was moved to sometime in December 2023. Every time we visited the site or any one of our representatives, there was no development on the property.
“On July 7, 2023, we lost hope in Landwey empty promises, and we decided to request for a full refund because they had breached the contract.” Although the firm has now refunded the money, the family is requesting compensation due to the devaluation of the money paid for the property,” she stated.
In a letter to the company, the family emphasised their discontent in the company’s unprofessional conduct that led to the refund after over 20-months of waiting for the completion of the property.
They said: “The waiting period for the refund had detrimentally devalued the money by well over 50 per cent of its original value. A legal firm cum recognised valuer firm is working on this to establish our case. I will formally bring a closure to this transaction, not only after an adequate litigation process by our legal team is established against you over the extended delay.
“They shall be demanding adequate devaluation compensation and for abuse of trust that had caused an undue and untold stress,” she said.According to Akande, Landwey needs to pay the family a difference in inflation rate amounting to N22 million.
