Middlechase Property Limited: What the Published Record Shows on Delivery and Refunds

Three separate Nigerian publications have reported unresolved buyer complaints against Middlechase Property Limited, spanning payments made between 2020 and 2021 on three different projects. In each case the buyer paid, the property was not handed over, a refund was promised, and the refund was either partial or never arrived. That is what the published record shows. It is not a finding about the company's intent, and no regulator or court has issued a determination against the company that we were able to locate.

Anyone weighing a purchase from a Lagos off-plan developer should know what is on the record and what is missing from it. Here is both.

What the company says about itself

Middlechase describes its model on its own website as offering "the possibility of buying professionally managed private, residential or commercial properties, with all the advantages that come with rental income." The same site sets out a group structure, naming Arkbridge Integrated Limited as "the mother company to Africa's Property Investment Group" and listing Property Baron Network, Middlechase Property Limited, Silverstone Managers, Add More Homes and A-Bricks among the group. Chudi Onyemeri Kalu is named there as "Chairman Of Board."

The clearest public account of the company's delivery position comes from its own chief executive. In a BusinessDay interview published on 29 September 2021, Chudi Kalu, identified as CEO of Middlechase Property Limited, said the company had completed 54 apartment allocations between the COVID lockdown and the interview date, and was constructing a 128-unit apartment complex. He also described a 2019 to 2024 target of developing at least 10,000 housing units, and acknowledged the company remained "far from" that objective.

Those are self-reported figures given in an interview. We found no independent confirmation of the 54 allocations, and no third-party record of a completed and handed-over Middlechase development.

The three published complaints

Mansfield, Surulere, reported August 2022. The Foundation for Investigative Journalism published a report on 9 August 2022 by Omolabake Ohu concerning a subscriber who had paid 14.5 million naira toward a property in the Mansfield Apartment Project in Surulere. FIJ reported the original completion date was the first quarter of 2021, later revised. A refund was arranged at 3 million naira a month, and the subscriber had received 6 million naira by publication. The company told FIJ: "He is currently on a 4 month payment plan originally meant to commence in May, but due to lack of response, it was scheduled to commence in June 2022. We have paid him a total sum of N6 million."

Mansfield again, reported September 2023. FIJ published a second report on 29 September 2023 by Emmanuel Uti. A Lagos banker identified as Olayemi paid 3.7 million naira toward a 16 million naira two-bedroom off-plan unit in the same Surulere project, starting with 1 million naira in early 2020. FIJ reported that construction had not commenced, that the price was later restated at 45 million naira against the original 16 million, and that a refund requested from August 2022 had not been paid. FIJ reported that a company representative asked for the customer's details and promised a response that did not arrive by press time.

Easton Towers, reported September 2024. West Africa Weekly published a report on 17 September 2024 by Mayowa Durosinmi concerning Enoch Ayodeji, a Nigerian resident in the United States, who paid 32 million naira in four tranches between 7 July and 2 August 2021 for land associated with Easton Towers. The outlet reported that after almost four years the matter was unresolved and a pre-action suit had been filed. It also reported that the company did not respond: contacts publicly listed by the firm were unreachable, and an emailed request for comment went unanswered by press time.