1. QUESTION: I AM INTERESTED IN BUYING IN A LAND NOW IN LAGOS, WHAT STEPS SHOULD BE TAKEN TO PROTECT MYSELF FROM FALLING VICTIM TO LAND FRAUDSTERS AND GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS? ANSWER: Follow these simple steps judiciously:
1a. Visit the land personally after you have signified interest to buy the land from the Agent. Never buy a land without viewing it yourself or through your trusted representatives. I will not do this for you guys again this year. Its your land so you must know what you want to buy.
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1b. If your abroad make sure its someone you trust that has no vested interest in that land that you should send to look at it for you on your behalf. Try as much as possible to avoid close family members or friends that would still benefit from the transaction in some way i.e Someone that you would be sending money through his account continuously or someone that would be supplying blocks or could collude with the sellers to make a profit off you.
1c. Also try to make the agent take pictures of the place or land before you visit the land so that when your back home you can compare and contrast what you have seen through pictures and what you have seen personally or via pictures .
TRUE STORY: This happened last year to a client in Malaysia (Name withheld). He saw an advert on properties about a land advertised at Ijede Ikorodu and instead of inquiring further to know more about the property or contact me, he was more attracted to the cheap price tag of N500,000 per plot and saw it as an awoof land to scoop up. The agent kept on pressurizing him to pay for the land because according to the agent there were several people interested in the land and the price might increase anytime soon. The client was so anxious and fell for the tricks of the agent that was putting pressure on him to buy the lands and instead of sending someone to check it out or contacting me to do the search he paid money (precisely N3Million for 6 plots@ N500,000 PER PLOT)directly to the account of the so called Seller and he was issued a receipt and promised a deed of assignment will be drawn up very soon. After 3 months he didn’t hear anything again from the agent and the more he bugged the agent with numerous phone calls to ask about his documents, the more the agent became hostile and evasive towards him. He was forced to finally call me to explain his predicament and was now ready to contract me to confirm the status of his lands and get his documents. I got in touch with the agent posing as a neutral buyer since he obviously hasn’t met me before and told him I wanted to buy some plots at Ijede . On getting there I felt like weeping for the Buyer. First of all the lands weren’t located in Ijede as advertised. Its another 30 minutes from Ijede. We are talking off the very very interior part of Ikorodu and to make matters worse the lands were very marshy and swampy that I was trying to decipher how the agent or seller knew where the buyers land started or stopped. To make matters worse I went with a surveyor to get the coordinates and she later found out that the place is under Government acquisition and was a no go area talkless of documents. When I gave him my search report that it was a very bad place and I won't have recommended it to him if he had contacted me earlier and now he is begging me to look for a buyer to buy those defective lands which I will never do because I will never willingly endorse or recommend a bad land for another person to buy except I have no idea in any form or manner that the land is defective. So the Keypoints to this Question above is to:
A. Always inspect the land you want to buy physically or through a trusted agent. If your abroad, plan your vacation or free time to come and see it physically before you commit yourself unless you will have yourself to blame.
B. Always contact a property lawyer to investigate the land for you. Don’t use any lawyer just because you have a lawyer neighbour or family member who is a lawyer. If He or she is not versed in property tricks your digging a hole for yourself.
C. Always contact a surveyor to take the coordinates of a land before you buy whether you see the land physically or not unless you might just be buying Gbese(Debt)
D. Never pay money to anybody that you haven’t met or know 1 or 2 things about the person selling the land to you and never pay money to anybody either an agent, seller or property company without bringing another person to act as a witness and making the seller and agents plus your witness general witnesses to the transaction. Another popular Question from Nairalanders I get every now and then is this:
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2. QUESTION: THE OWNER OF THE LAND AM INTERESTED IN BUYING IS NOT AROUND AND HE IS ABROAD, SO DO I PROCEED WITH THE TRANSACTION? ANSWER: To be honest this is a very very tricky question but from my experience I would say NO. Because we live in a society where land fraud is very prevalent. Its even more difficult to proceed with a land investigation when the Owner isn’t available talkless of paying for one to someone you cannot ascertain. But if you are still determined to still go ahead with the transaction make sure you follow these tips so you wont be defrauded:
A. Continue to pester the agent or the seller why can't he come over to conclude a transaction? He is receiving close to N2Million or more and his plane ticket isn’t more than N200,000, So why cant he come down for a day or 2 to identify himself and pick up his check?
B. If the Seller continues to provide excuses why he cant make it down, ask him for a copy of his passport and a letter from his bank that he is an account holder of whatever bank he intends to lodge his check or cash
C. Ask him to provide all the copies of the documents of the land and hand them over to your lawyer to check it out such as the receipts of the land who he bought it from, the deed of assignment, survey plan and if possible the building plan and make sure you cross check from all the people who prepared all the documents presented to you that it’s the same person that is selling the land to you that they prepared the documents for in his favour.
D. Compare Signatures from all the other documents and if possible try and meet a relative of the seller to compare notes to trace the history of the person selling the land to you.
E. Force the Seller to swear an affidavit or draft a power of attorney duly stamped by a commissioner of oath that he is the true and legitimate owner of the property and give your lawyer to examine and confirm its authencity.
TRUE STORY:
I was faced with this dilemma early this year when a client was
interested in buying a land in the Ajah environs. He had inspected the
land and he was very happy with the land and did his survey search to
confirm it was a good land but when it was the turn for the agent to
provide the documents for further scrutiny, he said the owner was in
Ireland and said he will only release the documents only if my client
will pay the N4Million to his account first and then he will sign the
documents for the client via DHL if I prepare the deed of assignment.
I queried the arrangement because it made no sense to me. I hadn’t seen
any document either real, photocopy or imaginary from the Seller except
through phone calls and he was demanding immediate payment before he
signs the documents sighting his reasons that he didn’t want his time to
be wasted by time wasters and if they were serious they would pay the
money and he will honour his path of signing the documents. I told my
client that was pure rubbish talk and if the so called seller was ready,
he will do everything possible to prove to me that he was the authentic
owner before I endorse it.
Because I was proving too difficult by not bending over till the Seller
provided me with documents, the Sellers agent was able to coerce the
Client that I was delaying the transaction and other people where
interested in the property and the Seller wasn’t interested in Selling
to my client again because I was too ‘rude and problematic’. (Am only
difficult, rude or Problematic when i smell a fraud and i dont care what
people think about me from that moment on) My client then
systematically pushed me aside and hired another lawyer to handle the
transaction for him who was ready to hob nob with the agent and the
Seller and he paid the N4Million to the Seller who in turn signed the
deed of Assignment and he didn’t tell me about the transaction with the
Seller. 4 or 5months later he started to Fence when 2 rival parties came
to the land to prevent him from working. Apparently the land in
question was a land in dispute and has been in court for 6 years now and
the omoniles where fighting a Wing Commander in the Airforce over that
piece of land.
The Seller was fraudulently sold that land by an Unsuspecting Omonile
some years back and he too didn’t know the land was under dispute and he
had no title to the land and wanted to quickly dispose of it
fraudulently that’s why he didn’t have any paper to prove ownership
whatso ever because there was none from the very start that’s why he was
very hostile with me because I was unto his tricks. Now he can't trace
the Seller neither can the agent be found and he now called me to step
in to assist to do something. I simply ignored him and advised him to
use the lawyer he used for that transaction and he told me that one has
been evading him and not picking his calls too. He cannot even take the
matter to court or the Omoniles because he has no right by mistake to
the land because he failed to do the right thing and exercise patience.
Buying land is not like buying Gala on the road. It takes time, patience
and experience to conclude a landed transaction especially in Lagos
So the key point for the above question include:
1. Don’t settle for less for a Seller abroad that you cannot see physically. Make sure he or she ticks all the boxes and don’t ever do anything without a lawyer. Its too dangerous.
2. The burden of proof for the Seller abroad is far higher than One in Nigeria. Make sure he double satisfies you that he is the real owner by demanding everything you need to confirm authencity.
3. If the Seller gets hostile or angry that either you or your lawyer is being a pest to demand for documents that are public records, please walk away and look for another land. God didn’t destine that land as yours and the more you push it the more a disaster awaits you.
4. If possible if the Seller is in a country or vicinity that you have a person, friend or relative that stays there, send the prepared deed drafted by your lawyer to that person so that he carries the document to the Seller so that he can put a face to the person signing it. Another Very Popular Question I get virtually every week:
3. QUESTION:THERE IS A LAND AM INTERESTED IN BUYING BUT THE SELLER OR THE PROPERTY COMPANY SELLING THE LANDS HAVE SAID I CAN PAY INSTALMENTALLY AND TRUTHFULLY I DON’T HAVE THE FULL MONEY TO PAY FOR IT IN FULL, WHAT THEN ARE THE PROS AND CONS OF PAYING FOR A LAND INSTALMENTALLY. WHAT’S YOUR ADVICE? ANSWER: Very Simple. If you can’t pay for it in full, sit down and gather the money till you have it to pay for it in full. Discipline yourself and save the money till you can purchase the land wholesomely. If your not disciplined enough then you can’t invest in big projects. Installment payments of land in lagos or Ogun state is the number one Land Scam perfected by the ‘educated Omoniles’ as I call them. They include Property development companies scattered around offering estates all over with 100% guarantee that your land will be transferred to you when full payment has been completed. Only 20% of Property development companies or Sellers honour that agreement and don’t default. Its better than a Madoff Scheme where they take your money because your desperate to secure the land and you pay a certain down deposit on the land promising to pay the remaining in some few weeks time or months. No Seller will tell you that you should’nt drop a deposit but when you drop that deposit that’s when all the wahala starts. These are the problems you face when dealing with installmental payment:
A. You don’t own the land or possess a fraction of it in anyway. The best the Seller can do for you is that he will give you a receipt that he has received part payment for the land. He can resell the land to a higher bidder and return your money to you despite all the efforts you must have put in to find the land and try to secure it. A seller that refunds your money is God sent and you must kiss his or her feet for 3 months for returning it without any wahala.
B. Let’s talk about the Wahala ones that wont refund your money; i. They have chopped your money and used it for other projects and will continue to deceive you using mind games that they will refund your money soon and for the next 1 year your pursuing them from pillar to post. ii. They will hold you ransom when they find another bidder who is also interested in that land and because they have seen that you have grown emotional to that land, your willing to add some extra thousands or millions to secure that land because they have scared you with another buyer. iii. There is no way you will agree with a seller to buy a land for a certain price say N1Million and you split the money twice or thrice and the seller doesn’t bring up hidden charges towards the end because he knows you don’t own that property till he hands over all the documents to you. iv. Finally I can’t help but go back to reason no 1 about chopping your money and playing games with you. Most of the estates around Lagos and Ogun springing up are the kings of perfecting this scam. Because most of them have an arrangement either with the family owners or banks who financed the estate to survey the place, clear the bushes and build fences around, they have to recoup that money spent unless the bank will not lend them more money or the families/investors become impatient that money is not entering as expected. So any money they receive as deposit from you as installmental payment is not kept in a safe place till your ready to either complete payment or in case you default and they refund your money back. Rather as soon as they receive that small installmental payment from you the money is immediately expended on other things either salaries, surveyors, shares, bonuses, payment of loans etc or something other than the true intention of the deposit. Their major prayer is for you not to default so that they can continue using the money for other uses and the moment you default and you call back for your deposit then your in trouble because they SIMPLY DON’T HAVE THE MONEY TO GIVE BACK TO YOU. That’s why even those that have paid completely for all the land when dealing with these people still have problems knowing where their plots are or having any document to validate ownership and possession of the land because they have collected so much installmental payment from people and until a certain amount of people pay their money in full, you cannot individually lay claim to owning a piece of land in that estate or area. There are so many cases in court and With the EFCC with respect to this particular scam of installmental payment by land sellers and its only through the Grace of God you can be amongst the lucky few Sellers who honor their agreements to hand over the land to you when you pay in full or refund your installmental payment when demanded. Bottom line to me do everything in your power to caution youself from paying installmentally for a land. Its too dangerous and it gives you no guarantee or possession of the property. The best you can get is suing the person to court for Specific Performance but that again is fraught with difficulties and also consider the legal costs involved in suing someone and the time the case might be settled. And as long as there is an Injunction or one court ruling or the other, you cannot touch the seller once the matter is in court and your money is hanging till they determine the suit. If you go through police, they will only chop 2 of you and finally realize that it’s a civil matter after they have skimmed you dry. But if you choose to pay through installmental payments please be very wise and smart and watch out for the bosom traps these Con Artist want to lay for you. 2
TRUE STORIES A client saw this advert where he could buy a plot of land in Ajah via one of these new Real estate companies and they were offering him instalmental payment of this property to pay for this land at N7.2Million but he could spread the payment in 12months, 24months or 36months but the premium would be higher if he spreads it and the total price of the land could shoot up to N9Million If he chooses the 36 months payment option. He decided to go for the 12months option of paying N600,000 for 12months and he was given an account to pay monthly. On getting to the 9th month he had difficulties meeting up with his payments and he invoked the clause in the contract of sale stating that if he defaults the Real estate company will deduct a certain percentage of what he has paid and refund the remaining sum and that’s when the whole wahala started. They kept on giving him different stories that he will be refunded and that the money was in a fixed account and will be released in 3months time. 3months turned to 9months and stories kept on changing. When he contracted me to go and find out what the problem was it was the usual horror story. They were not allocating plots to subscribers because they were having financial issues with the bank that was financing them and instead of keeping the money collected by the firm as instalmental payment, they were using it to finance bank interests and couldn’t meet up with the promises of a well planned estate blah blah blah. In fact almost 200 subscribers had taken them to court for money owed exceeding N1Billion and the company is untouchable because the matter is in court and until they settle the matter no body will get kobo. The client has no money neither does he have any land and has to split his losses with 200 or more people whenever the case will be settled. (Call me privately and i will reveal the name of the Company. You will be shocked because its a very popular Real estate company in Ajah doing big projects; All that glitters is not Gold ooo!
STORY 2 (This story hurts me very much because as tight as I am with this person, he refused to involve me in this transaction until kata kata burst) A friend from my University days decided to buy a land at ABORU around the Iyana paja side and they were selling the land for around N1.8Million or so. Now he had N1Million in cash and was so desperate to get a land and met an agent who introduced him to the seller and the baale of that area. They told him that he could pay the N1Million and balance the remaining N800,000 Within 3 months. He was very happy with the arrangement and paid the N1Million. The following month he brought N350,000 so as to balance N450,000 and to his surprise 2 days after he had paid the N350,000 he started hearing another story that the baale said the land was sold too cheaply and it should be going for N2.5Million instead of N1.8Million and that the family members complained seriously. He was in shocked and rushed to beg the baale to honour his agreement and upon several quarrels and persuasion the baale finally agreed to settle for N2Million and he brought the other N450,000 to make it N1.8Million and promised to bring the remaining N200,000 soon so that they will give him a receipt for final payment. When he brought the remaining N200,000 a month or so after he noticed someone had started fencing the land he was paying installmentally for. He challenged the Baale that he saw some people fencing and he told him that the family people did not agree for the N2Million and resold the land to a woman for N2.7Million and he will be refunded his money but the bale couldn’t give to him at that time because they used the money to do Igbeyawo ( Marriage) and they will refund him back installmentally when they sell other lands. (Long Hissss . . . Mscheeeww! Can you imagine) He was furious at first and decided to wait for the baale to honour his statement of refunding the money and he waited for 4 months no show until he decided to tell me. I wanted to run mad and we rushed to Aboru and asked the Baale why didn’t he relocate my friend if he couldn’t repay him instantly, he said unless my friend was ready to pay an extra N700,000 before they could relocate him because the prices of the lands had increased and they were not ready to cut short their profit and he had to wait until they recoup his money. Immediately I rushed to the nearest police station and that’s where all the deceit came out.
1. The land in question was under Federal government acquisition so the Omoniles had no right to sell. It fell under the Federal Government Scheme Baruwa so they were just reselling official government land.
2. The so called Baale wasn’t even an indigene of that area and he was just masking as a baale in conjunction with some other people to deceive him.
3. They had squandered his money and had no way of repaying it because they had no asset whatever. The police dealt with them seriously and promised to charge them to court, till tomorrow no court, no money, no land and no criminal because they absconded the moment they were bailed .
So the Key Points for the Above Questions include the following:
1. If you can pay for the land or property in full, don’t do ijebu and stagger the payment because it sounds convenient to you. Pay for it at once and collect your documents and own the property on the spot. No stories.
2. If your tight with cash and you must do the installment payment thing, please spend part of that money to know who your parting money with. If it’s a real estate company, ask for their certificate of incorporation to investigate the company at the corporate affairs commission whether they exist or they have been proscribed or queried in anyway or to know who the directors are. Take that name to the nearest high court, pay a clerk to check their files whether there is any existing suit between that company and subscribers over landed issues. Talk to your banker friends to probe deep whether that company has taken out some loans to finance the project. Almost everybody knows 1 or 2 people that work in banks so such information should be so privileged. Go to the company and ask them for samples of previous clients they have dealt with and people you can contact to verify they have dealt with them. Ask for all the documents you will get immediately you pay for land and how soon you will get them. Make sure you go to the proposed land that your buying so that you can see what your buying physically and it must correspond with what the contract of sale stipulates. Make sure a Property Lawyer helps you handle this installment payment process. This is the number 1 mistake people make because they believe the process is so simple to exclude lawyers and you can do it yourself, meanwhile at the end of the day its lawyers that will chop money finish when kata kata crops up.
3. If its an individual your dealing with make sure you play hard ball or something. Try and make him give you the original document of something in exchange for a considerable sum as installmental payment. You bear a greater risk with an individual who can abscond or resell the property at your back and still not refund you your installmental payment or tell him he should give you the right to start fencing so that you can protect your own interest and if you don’t fulfill your part he can either seize the land from you, gain the fence or whatso ever but try to fight to gain something in your favour.
4. QUESTION: I WANT TO BUY A HOUSE FILLED WITH SITTINGTENANTS, HOW DO I PROCEED WITH IT: ANSWER: Buying a house isn’t that complicated and its almost a fairly simple transaction once you can identify the true owner but the real problem comes when your interested in buying a house that has sitting tenants whose tenancy has not expired. It’s a very tricky situation whereby if your not careful you could inherit the tenants in that house and not gain any profit or investment from the house you have just purchased, so these are the steps you need to take before you buy a house filled with sitting tenants and what you should look out for:
1. Always ask the Selling Landlord to tell you about the history of the house he intends to sell i.e How old the House is, When it was built, How many tenants he has rented the place to over the years, the Original receipt of the land when it was bought, a copy of the Original architectural drawing, copy of the survey of the land, proof of payment of tenement rates or past previous water or Nepa bills going the last 6 months.
2. Try to get in touch with one or 2 of the tenants to tell you one or two things about the landlord and the history of the house. Also get to ask neighbours on the street to tell you one or 2 things about the House you intend to buy to know whether the Seller is the genuine owner of the property. A House that is going for sale and the tenants don’t know its for sale or the neighbours is a recipe for disaster and problems. The Cons of buying a House could be found in the following and the Buyer must shine his or her eyes well to avoid the following:
a. The tenants are not willing to go after the new Seller has paid and they start to cause problems.
b. The Buyer refuses to check the tenancy agreements of the tenants and the tenants invoke their tenancy clause to finish up their tenancy unless they will take the new Seller to court and the tenant ends up staying in the flat till the suit has been settled and the Seller will never enjoy his House because of that tenant. c. The Landlord promises to pay the Tenants off before their tenancy expires to deceive the Seller but as soon as the Seller pays for the House, he disappears with the money and the Seller inherits bad tenants and finds out that the Seller deceived everyone and the Seller will have to re-negotiate with the tenants all over again and shell out huge sums of money to push them out. d. Also before you drive out the tenants even after their tenancy has legally expired, you have to spend a lot of money to push them out because they demand a lot. They will drop all their family problems on you and the Seller who is in a hurry to take possession of the House will succumb to their demands especially if the tenant is a new one whose tenancy hasn’t expired.
TRUE STORY: 1. A Buyer was interested in buying a 4 bedroom flat in Soluyi Gbagada and sent his agent to scout out a property for him to buy. He found one with Sitting tenants and told me about it and that he was interested in buying it because of the price. I immediately cautioned him that the price wasn’t the important thing here but knowing the status of the tenants unless it would spell diasater. He told me that it wasn’t important because he would use “BOYS” to pursue the tenants if they refuse to go. I told him that its not as easy as he is saying it and we have to investigate further and take things slowly. The more I told him to be patient to do things properly the more he found me as an antagonist especially as the Seller kept telling him another person was interested in the same property and was about to pay soon. At my back without doing any background check, he arranged to meet the owner privately to pay money to at Abeokuta where they showed him one old man as the owner but he had retired to the village after building the flat. The Seller was happy that he had bought the house and contacted me to do the C/O immediately and upon a private background check I found out that the Previous owner at the Village just rented the place newly to new tenants for 2 years each and he hadn’t given them the proper 6 months quit notice and he lied to the Buyer that he had told the tenants previously and has issued all of them quit notices. The tenants refused to leave the house and blackmailed the new owner that unless he pays each of them N500,000 Each they wont leave. He attempted using the so called boys to threaten the Tenants which did not work and they ended up suing the Seller for violating the tenancy agreement. This is almost 8months now and the Buyer has not taken possession of the House because of a court injunction and the Tenants are not bound to leave or renew their tenancy till the Suit expires and that should take 3 or more years at the rate the case is going on. The Buyer keeps calling me now on what he should do now because its as if he has bought “GBESE” aka 'DEBT'. I Ignore him most of the time because he refused to do a simple background check and rushed to buy a property without professional help.
TRUE STORY 2
B. This had nothing to do with the negligence of the Buyer but
rather the deceit of the Seller and the need to not involve sentiments
in doing anything as long as it’s a transaction that involves exchange
of money.
The seller here was a woman who wanted to sell a property at Ibafo and
she had 2 sitting tenants. The Buyers are truly reputable people and I
can vouch for their integrity any day any time. (Kudos Mr Adewole and
Thlala Kolo Ltd! I Appreciate you and keep learning from you The Buyers
negotiated a particular price to buy the property off the woman after
doing so many preliminary investigations to establish the validity of
the ownership of the property and the Seller even brought her lawyer
along to stand for her. She promised so many things about the issue of
the tenants and how she would pay the tenants off and even provide
alternative accommodation for them once the Buyers pay her.
She went as far as saying they had been intimated way back that she
wanted to sell the property and their tenancy had almost expired so they
didn’t have any other reason to stay 1 extra day after she had paid
them off to vacate the premises. She did everything possible to prevent
us from interviewing the tenants personally because she said if they
knew about the immediate transaction, thieves could attack her and the
tenants would want to demand more money for them to leave. Being
honorable men, they decided to trust her words including Me and hoped
since It was a woman, we should expect much hassles or such Omonile type
behavior. How wrong we were. Infact She is one of the most despicable
Women I have ever come across.
Right from the bank she demanded to cash over N10Million to put in her
bag to carry home because she didn’t trust the Buyers to issue her a
draft which would also equate as Cash at hand. Thank God the bank
refused such request to hand her such a huge sum and the tantrum she
threw at the bank was just the beginning of the drama. Immediately she
cashed it, she disappeared and nobody knew her whereabouts. The buyers
now decided to confront the Tenants a week after to confirm whether the
Seller had given them the money for them to relocate and they feigned
ignorance of even knowing that the Property was even offered for sale
and One of the tenants even said he just paid his rent newly because the
he was getting married and needed a new apartment and the week the
Seller was paid was the week she accepted new rent from the newly wedded
tenant. The Onus was now on the Buyers to negotiate with the tenants to
tell them that ownership had changed hands and the tenants demanded a
huge sum of money for them to relocate peacefully and they should also
be given time to move. It took months before they left before the
Sellers could do anything meaningful in that place It was a difficult
time for the Buyers to still shell out more money to sort out the
tenancy issue and it really made them upset that they trusted the Woman.
Everything would have been sorted out if we had had access to the
tenants to get the true state of things before paying rather than
relying on the word of mouth of the Woman and her dodgy lawyer .
1. It may be a different Survey plan layout they are showing you and it might not represent the area you intend to buy. You might be interested in buying a land in Ogombo but the layout is showing another set of lands in Ibeju Lekki.
2. You cannot determine if the Coordinates of the land or Survey layout shown to you represent the same area. They might be showing you a plot in the midst of all the other lands and telling you that its free but that when you search harder through a Surveyor you will be surprised that that particular plot falls outside the Gazette or C/O of that area and once your hooked you can’t run away.
3. A Survey layout isn’t a Proper Survey and anybody or group of people can draw up a Layout to confuse you and you don’t know whether its free from Govt acquisition or not and its only your own Surveyor that can draw up your own personal Survey plan after he has gone to the site to confirm whether it is a good land or not. 4. Finally a Survey Layout can never guarantee that the land isn’t stolen or belongs to you. 2 or more people can own that same plot of land and they will be deceiving you that the reason they haven’t allocated the land to you is because they are doing some background work and you should exercise patience. By the time you wait for a while and demand for your documents you will discover that other people are also fighting for possession for the same land and the merry go round of wahala begins.
TRUE STORY: A Buyer wanted to buy lands at Lakowe along Ibeju Lekki from a company that advertised their lands for sale in one of these popular property magazines. The company’s head office is at Ikeja and he decided to do his own little fact finding to confirm its genuinity. They showed him so many documents that they acquired it from the Family and they gave them the right to sell and they are processing the C/O but they had surveyed the whole lands and done a big Survey layout showing over 200 plots of well mapped out plots in Blocks and Plots and after the Buyer pays he will be allocated a plot. They wrote so many names on each plot with pencil indicating who and who had bought the plots previously and told the Buyer to choose a plot that hasn’t been taken. The Buyer not totally convinced told the Owners to take him to the lands to see the plots and they took him to a vast expanse of land and pointed the land to him from a distance and said he can only know his plot when it has been properly allocated and they allocate lands after every 10 people have Paid to Make it easier for them and the Buyer. He was excited and promised to pay the next day and when he got home he told his wife about it and his plans to pay the next day. The wife was suspicious and she is a staunch silent follower of Nairaland properties and decided to give me a call to verify what her husband told her. She said her husband was about to pay N4.8Million for 4 plots at N1.2Million each and she wanted to be sure he isn’t throwing money away. Immediately I gave her the contact of a Surveyor to tell the Surveyor to go there to take the coordinates of the land. When the surveyor got to the company, they refused to show her the Survey layout and summarily dismissed her without taking her to see the land for her to take coordinates. I now decided to go to the company to pose as a Buyer and told the surveyor to give me one of her boys to escort me to the Office and the site and he should take his GPS secretly to pick the coordinates when we get there. The Owners waxed lyrically about the authencity of the land and if I pay I would get my own plot after the general allocation and I also promised to come and pay at the end of the week. The Surveyor’s boy secretly took the coordinates of the area they showed us (NOT THE PARTICULAR LAND ITSELF O! IT WAS FROM A DISTANCE AS USUAL) And after confirming it at the Surveyor general’s office it was found that that the lands the Company wanted to Sell to the Buyer was a COMMITTED LAND AND THE PROPOSED LAKOWE GOLF COURSE is to PASS THROUGH THERE. I hurriedly told the wife and the Buyer almost wanted to run mad that the company wanted to deceive him. When he called the Company to express his disappointment, they rudely told him to get lost and other people will buy it. They offered no apology or rational explanation why they are selling bad lands to people or attempted to find a better plot for him and upon further investigation on that Company I found out so many people have carried them to court for selling fake lands and not allocating the lands as promised to them. So the Key Points here is that:
1. Never buy a land just because they showed you a Survey layout of the land without a registered Surveyor confirming it for you that it’s a good land.
2. Never part with money for a land you cannot see physically with your own eyes or step on the ground of that plot. Don’t just allow the Seller to point to a land to you as yours when you cant even demarcate it to know the total square meters of it.
3. Be wary of those Sellers promising to allocate you lands through a Survey layout alone, promising that they need to allocate lands per 10s or 20s. These are red flags that something is wrong somewhere and you should shine your eyes. Am tired, need to sleep! Will continue soon with more interesting questions and true stories which would include Pros and Cons of buying lands that are Swampy, lands that have been fenced and all the tricks associated with them, how to spot good and bad agents from afar, The issue of Ratification and the scams associated with it, Scams involved when paying for signing fees and foundation money etc and a host of many other stories. Cheers