As prospective tenants continue to face illegal rent demands despite the government’s six-month rent advance directive, a Ghanaian property technology company has launched a mobile application to help expose landlords and agents who violate the law.
The application, known as the FirstKey App, was developed by real estate and property technology company, Ownkey, to ensure that only compliant property listings are published on its platform.
It is also expected to support the Rent Control Department’s efforts to enforce the rent advance directive.
The Chief Executive Officer of Ownkey, Mr Ilyas Ibrahim, disclosed this in an interview with The Ghanaian Times in Accra last Wednesday.
He said the success of the application would depend largely on information from tenants and accommodation seekers.
Mr Ibrahim acknowledged that identifying all landlords and agents who breach the law would not happen immediately, but expressed confidence that collaboration with tenants and property agents would help improve compliance.
He said Ownkey would also work with the Rent Control Department to encourage more landlords to register on the platform and strengthen enforcement of the law.
According to him, the initiative was aimed at promoting transparency in the rental market and protecting tenants from unlawful rent demands.
“FirstKey App covers every rental listed below GH¢2,500 a month, the segment most exposed to exploitation, regardless of how a property was presented. All of this is to protect tenants and ensure they are not exploited,” he said.
Mr Ibrahim recalled that on March 17, 2026, President John Dramani Mahama urged tenants to report landlords who demanded more than the legally permitted six months’ rent in advance, while calling for stronger cooperation between government, labour and the private sector to address Ghana’s housing challenges.
He described FirstKey as one example of the private sector’s contribution towards achieving that objective, adding that the platform was built around the standards of the Rent Act, 1963 (Act 220).
He noted that although the law had restricted advance rent payments to six months for more than six decades, weak enforcement and reluctance by both tenants and landlords to use the Rent Court had allowed demands for one to two years’ advance rent to become common.
Mr Ibrahim said the situation had been worsened by Ghana’s housing deficit, estimated at about 1.8 million units.
He explained that every property listing on the FirstKey App was checked against the six-month advance rent limit before publication, saving tenants the difficulty of negotiating down unlawful charges.
He added that renters and buyers could use OwnEstimate, a feature on the platform, to determine whether rental prices were realistic for specific locations within 60 seconds.
“Closing Ghana’s housing deficit is going to take exactly the kind of government, labour and private-sector cooperation he described, and we think a company that has spent three years building verification and affordability infrastructure has something useful to bring to that table,” he stated.
BY NORMAN COOPER
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