The Association of House Owners and Residents (AHOAR) in Paradise Estate in Life Camp, Abuja, are demanding the release of their title documents from the developer, who is also owner of Lekki Gardens, Lagos.

The Chairman of the association, Mr Samson Oche, who led a protest by the residents, made the demand at a news conference in Abuja on Friday.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the residents carried placards with inscription such as “Where is our title documents Richard’’; “Our roofs are giving way with the slightest rain storm”.

“We want to live in a secure estate with title document”, and “Residents of Paradise Estate Life Camp are tired of your lies” to convey their demands.

Oche decried that the developers promised to give their title documents to home owners within three weeks of handing over the units but for over three years that promise had not been fulfilled.

“We were promised that it will take only three weeks from the date of handover of our units to receive our housing document but three years later, it is stories upon stories.

“We have poor infrastructure in this residence that led to destruction of the residents’ houses during the recent rain storm in Abuja and they have been dragging their feet to fix and compensate the victims.

“There have been alterations in the buildings of our estate by people illegally making requests to Department of Development Control without the consent of residents association and the home owners to change the original designs,” he said.

Oche also condemned the establishment of a school in the estate, saying that it was not part of the original terms given to the residents when they purchased the property.

“One of the terms was that this place is strictly for residential purpose but now the purpose has been distorted with the school,” he said.

He also mentioned lack of proper perimeter fencing and no site created for recreational area, adding “these were the things that were used to advertise the property to us.”

One of the residents, Mr Ogbugo Ukoha called on the department of development control to come to the aid of the residents by calling the developer to order.

“I have lived here for close to 15 months and topmost is the issue of title. The developer sold the property to everybody off plan.

“So to the surprise of owners, we discovered that by February 2020, they have been in court for the past five years prior and during which they were still selling.

“And by February 2021, the FCT high court gave a judgment against paradise allocating this land to a third party which means that those of us who bought have been deceived into buying asset that we don’t own,” he said.

Ukoha said that the matter had been on appeal as they held several meetings with the developer’s board.

He said that the managing director of the board assured that they had commenced negotiations to settle the matter out of court as this was the only way owners would be assured of their property.

Mrs Anne Igah, also a resident called on paradise estate developer to do the needful by providing residents with their title documents.

Igah also urged them to obey agreement by ensuring that they maintained their initial position of making the estate a residential one.

“It took over four to five years before I moved here. I have lived in an estate down the road and we have never had problem with our roofing.

“Here, each time it rained, we have to pray that our roof should not to fly off. Who builds a house in less than two years and is already changing the roof, no one does that.

“But in paradise, that is what we are facing today.

“We also have plumbing issues as we have to spend so much of our money to do all a lot of repairs that we didn’t bargain for and we all know what the economy is like right now,” she said. (NAN)