Recovery of Residential Premises through Adoption of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Techniques: Experience from Lagos, Nigeria

One of the remedies of breach of covenant(s) in landlord tenancy relationship is recovery of premises. This is apart from reasons of personal use and/or the need for comprehensive renovation/adaptation/conversion. Whereas it is easy as said or as may be engrossed in the Agreement to recover possession in case of breach of covenants(s), it is not so easy in practical term. The usual approach of achieving this in practice is through recourse to litigation which is expensive, time consuming and also result into loss of income to the property. This paper aim at exploring the use of ADR techniques as a legitimate means of ejection of recalcitrant tenant in property without the use of “power of threat”. This is with a view of providing information that will improve property investment and management. The paper adopt a case study approach using five selected case studies where ADR approach were employed to recover premises. The experience from the case studies shows that the use of ADR in premises recovery is effective but also has its challenges. In the five case studies, consent judgment, mediation, arbitration and negotiation that often includes persuasion and inducement were employed to recover premises in less than three months compared to an average of eighteen months using litigation. Also, the cost in all the cases are lower where they exist at all than when litigation that ends with FIFE and the incidental expenses thereof are employed. The paper provides challenges and useful information to practitioners on the use of effective alternative approach to recover premises from recalcitrant tenants.