Legal fees on rentals: ₦50k for a contract template?

On a ₦1.8M Lekki rental, the "legal fee" line is typically ₦90,000 to ₦180,000 — 5% to 10% of annual rent, paid to the landlord's lawyer for drafting the tenancy agreement. If you ever read the agreement itself, you'll notice something: it's a two-to-four-page template that took the "lawyer" maybe 30 minutes to adapt from a previous deal. You're paying ₦90k for 30 minutes of work. That's a ₦180,000/hour effective rate. Nigerian senior barristers charge less.

This post explains what the legal fee actually covers, when it's legitimate, when it's redundant, and how to negotiate it out or down. For the full move-in cost picture see the true cost of renting a home in Nigeria.

What the legal fee nominally pays for

The legal fee on a Nigerian rental is supposed to cover:

1. Drafting the tenancy agreement — the contract between landlord and tenant
2. Reviewing the clauses for fairness and legal enforceability
3. Stamping the document at the state internal revenue service or FIRS
4. Registering the tenancy (if the term is over 3 years, some states require registration at the Land Registry)
5. Advising the landlord on legal obligations going forward

At 5-10% of annual rent, the fee implies substantive legal work. In reality, most rental tenancy agreements in Nigeria are prepared via template, with minimal customisation, by law firms or pseudo-law-firms that process dozens of these a month.

Who actually drafts the agreement

In practice, tenancy agreements in Nigeria come from four sources:

1. A genuine real estate lawyer. 10-15% of the market. The lawyer reviews the specific property, customises the agreement, advises both parties, stamps and registers the document. Fee: 5-10% of rent, reasonable.

2. A junior associate at a law firm using a template. 40-50% of the market. The firm has a standard tenancy template; the junior adapts it (changing names, dates, rent figures) in 30 minutes. Fee: 5-10% of rent, substantially padded.

3. An estate agent with a Word template. 25-35% of the market. The "agent" downloaded a template from Google or got one from a lawyer friend years ago. They adapt it themselves. Fee: 5-10% of rent, nearly pure markup.

4. The landlord directly, from a prior tenancy. 10-15% of the market. The landlord uses the same template they've used for previous tenants with minimal changes. If they're charging a legal fee, it's pure profit.

Only the first category justifies a percentage-based fee. The other three should be flat-fee affairs — ₦10-30k if the work is real, ₦0 if the template is reused.