By: Nyima Sillah
Tenants across the Greater Banjul Area are always in trouble regarding the exorbitant charges of house rent they are facing courtesy of the landlord but some claimed to be orchestrated by some of the so-called house agents.
Most of these tenants have voiced out that the high cost of house rents still remains a challenge in the country, especially during the rainy season.
In an exclusive interview with Ba Ansu Sanneh, a tenant, who told this medium that the high cost of house rent is still a major challenge, which he said remains the list discussed topic in the country. And noted that if the issue is not solved, it will continue to have a huge negative impact on the livelihoods of the people.
“Wages in the Gambia are below standard, but we all can attest that monthly spending in every household is extremely high and the majority of those renting are low-income earners. The sad reality is that at the moment, searching for a house becomes very hard and most of the prices are doubled because landlords and house agents take the advantage of the high demand for houses during the rainy season and double the amount which is definitely disheartening,” he stressed.
Habibatou Manneh narrated her ordeal “I was charged D36,000 for 6 months deposits meaning D6,000 per month and my previous payment before the rainy season was D31,200 for 6 months deposit, which costs D5,200 per month. Looking at this payment scale and the earnings of the civil servants, where do they expect us to make living if we invest all our monthly wages on house rent?”
In the same development, one Landlord, Seyaka Beyai, explained why some of these rental services are expensive saying the 6 months cash deposit before giving out the house is kept, should in case of a tenant damage anything in the house within the 6 months and decide to move to another house, they use that money to renovate the house before giving it out.
“Although it came to my notice that we have agents that also charged extra fees without the consent of the landlords, which sometimes becomes challenging for us to get direct costumers. I want to make it clear that some of these agents don’t share any contacts with the landlords, so it is better for individuals to directly search houses for themselves rather than depending on the agents,” he advised.
He further disclosed that landlords fix charges based on the location of the house and the size of the room which some tenants fail to understand.
