General News of Thursday, 24 May 2018
Source: citinewsroom.com
2018-05-24
Aerial view of some part of the Ashaiman township
Some landlords in the Ashaiman municipality are reported to be taking rent in the form of sex from female tenants in their homes.
This is according to a report by the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Centre.
The annual 2017 report of the ADR, Ashaiman Centre, said: “in some cases, landlords exchange rent with sex for a period”.
The report compiled by the three mediators at the centre revealed that in some cases, caretakers took advantage of female prospective tenants and demand for sex even though they were not the owners of the houses.
They stated for instance that in one of such cases, a caretaker entrusted with a house due to the absence of the landlord rented a room in the apartment to a lady for two years.
It added that the caretaker who started an affair with the female tenant verbally extended her rent for another one year term after the expiration of the initial payment.
He again extended the rent period to an additional one year during which period he continued his affair with her even though she was pregnant for another man.
According to the ADR, the caretaker ordered the lady to vacate the room after she broke up with him but she refused because they had a two-year verbal tenancy agreement.
The ADR mediators indicated that they managed to convince the caretaker to compensate the lady after he revealed that he was not the owner of the apartment and that he was ejecting her because the landlord wanted his property.
The report also mentioned a case in which a landlord caught his wife having sexual intercourse with a tenant leading to his ejection.
The ADR Centre which serves Ashaiman and its environs recorded a total of 825 rent cases in 2017 which showed a reduction of four cases from the 829 handled in 2016.
Most of the cases bothered on financial constraint, high increment on rent, failure to pay rent on time primarily as a result of the loss of the job.
Others were keeping pets and entertaining visitors contrary to their tenancy agreements.