419 is rampant in Nigeria and its extremely prevalent when it comes to buying landed property in Lagos. These people are tough and cold hearted and they take no prisoners when it comes to making you part with your money. So below are some rules and tips when buying property and please learn from them because i also was a victim when i of all people let my guard down.
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1. Rule number one and the most important rule: TRUST NO SELLER OR AGENT NO MATTER WHAT TILL YOU HAVE GOTTEN YOUR DOCUMENTS SIGNED, SEALED AND DELIVERED.
2. Don’t believe all the Marketing Bullshit adverts from Sellers or Agents till you have done your own personal search to confirm. The more they tell you they have a good track record for sales done properly, the more you should be prepared that you might be the first person where things will go wrong and your money will disappear.
3. Every land you are interested in, always and i mean always ask for these documents:
a. The Survey Plan
b. The deed of Assignment and how the property was transferred from time immemorial to the present day Seller:
c. Copy of the Original receipt the Seller used to purchase the land and from whom he bought it from
d. Copy of either the gazette, C/O or governors consent of the land. e. If possible visit the property personally or send a representative you trust.
Never buy a property directly from a property magazine or website without you seeing it personally or sending your representative to see it and comment on it. If a seller tells you he is not ready to release a document because it’s a private document, please walk away. Every landed document is a Public document of record that can be investigated and searched. The more they tell you they can’t release it, the more suspicious you should be and after demanding it strenuously and its still rejected please walk away fast. Sweet Talking by a Seller or Agent will only put you in more trouble. If the Seller or Agent says it will take him time before he gets the document but you should fast track the transaction till he gets the document because other people are interested in the land, let him go and eat the land. Without these documents for search, your only falling victim to these fraudsters.
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CASE STUDY NO 1 IN OKOTA:
A client contracted a lawyer to do a search for him in respect
of a land he wanted to buy. He contacted an Estate Agent who introduced
him to the owners of the land and they claimed to be family members of
the Okota Ruling family. When i got to the Omonile's place of residence,
i asked them to identify themselves and they brought out everything
including driver’s licences, Nepa bills showing their names and
addresses, bank account statements, letters and certificates showing
they are affilated with the Okota Ruling families. In short everything i
asked from them in terms of identification scaled through.
On a further Personal inspection of the land i noticed it was a fenced
land and had a small gate man's house there. I asked the Omonile when he
bought the land he said in 1978 and showed me an old receipt of the
purchase with these old 5kobo stamps attached to it and he told me to
take it to the Okota palace to verify it and even gave me a name to meet
there to cross check which i did and the person he directed me to
brought out a book showing all the transactions since the 1970s till
date and confirmed that the original Okota family sold it to the
omonile.
I asked the Omonile why he was just selling it after 20 something years
and why didnt he build on it since Okota was a prime place, he told me
he was short of money when he fenced the land and built the gate mans
house 5 years ago and abandoned it but he was now ready to sell the land
for N6 million. I asked him where he was living and i traced his
address to the place he gave me as his official address and i couldn’t
help but try to compare the Okota property he said he was building and
owned and the squalor home he is living in presently to see the
differences. I had serious doubts about the seller but i couldn’t find
any fault so far. I now decided to up my game by demanding for the
documents of the property and he gave me a registered deed of assignment
registered in Alausa in the 1980s and upon search it was found to be
duly registered in their name and i finally encouraged the client to do a
survey plan search which finally checked out.
After all said and done, i had nothing else to search and had to endorse
the sale for the buyer and the property was going for N6.5Million but
my spirit still wasn’t convinced that all was right but i couldn’t point
out precisely what the problem was and how to detect it. The Agents
kept on adding pressure on the Buyer that he should buy the land because
other buyers were also interested and in return the Buyer added more
pressure on me to endorse it quickly because he didn’t want to lose the
land because to him it was a steal. On the eve of the night of paying
the sum, i felt very uneasy and i took the receipt and deed of
assignment and kept on going through it over and over to see if i could
pick any faults but i couldn’t.
Driving home that night i suddenly had that urge to park along the road
to review all the documents properly and that’s when God decided to open
my eyes. The Deed of Assignment registered in Alausa in the 1980s was a
perfect clone from the one i was reviewing. Everything was properly
typed out and stamped exactly and dated exactly[b] except one very tiny
mistake[/b]. The person who drafted the clone Deed of Assignment was an
expert forger but he slept off at the end of the drafting and in one
small corner he forgot to proof read his work thoroughly. In a
particular line of the deed of assignment where it was to be dated 16 of
April 1983, he ended up typing 16TH OF MAY 2010. That small error was
all i needed to cancel the transaction. I took that same cloned deed of
assignment to Alausa and gave it to 4 experts there and none of them
where able to discover the error until i pointed it out and they were
extremely amazed at the level of forgery.
It was’nt discovered due to human power but through God i must confess
and when i confronted the Omoniles about the fraud, they simply demanded
for their papers and said they weren’t selling again. The next day i
came to confirm about the owners, i was told they had disappeared and
moved out from the place they were staying. I further learnt that they
planted a mole in the Oba's palace in Okota and doctored the log book
that recorded all the transactions for people who search to be convinced
its real and i finally discovered that the plot of land belonged to
professor in The U.S that bought the land in the 80s from a third party
seller and was developing his land little by little but didn’t know
Omoniles where attempting to sell his property at his back.
So the moral of this story brings out the following tips:
a. Never trust any Omonile who brings out any document for a property
that you can see that is quite new but the documents are old looking
b. Always be wary about properties that are fenced. Try to get to the
bottom of it why the so called seller fenced the property and he is
ready to sell because he might be selling you another man's property
c. Whenever you see foundation on a property, always demand for the
building plan approval to confirm unless they might be selling you
another man's property
d. Always demand for the survey plan for a fenced property and try and
trace the beacon numbers either on the ground or on the wall and compare
them with what you have on the survey plan and compare the date the
survey plan was made and drawn and the name on the survey plan.
e. Never be in a hurry to buy a land and don’t let the agents or sellers
push you till you have completed your search and convinced all is well
unless when your pushed, you part with your money and you won’t see both
the agent and seller again.
f. Always try and visualize a person selling a multi million naira land
and his personality. Someone that looks like a person that hasn’t
counted or seen N500,000 EVER CANNOT CLAIM TO BE AN OWNER OF LAND THAT
RUNS FOR MILLIONS.
G. Please, Please and Please Investigate the Owner and the documents
thoroughly. Don’t skimp on the search fees it could save your bank
account and family savings. I get it all the time people shouting they
can’t pay N50,000 for search but are ready to throw away N2 Million and
above and later come back to cry to me where things went wrong.
CASE STUDY NO2 (DODGY SURVEYORS)
Everyone knows that i have been a foremost promoter of doing a survey
plan search with a surveyor before buying and if possible going to the
land with an Alausa Surveyor to confirm whether it is free from
acquisition or not. Well i also fell victim of dodgy surveyors i
recommended to people that ended up colluding with the omoniles to
decieve buyers and me. Such instances occured in Okun Ajah, Mopo Ibeju,
Sangotedo, Ikorodu, lafiaji, Eputu, Akowonjo and mowe.
These surveyors have found a way to beat the system because of their
greed and its almost next to impossible for a buyer or me to know where
they have gone wrong. If it is a familiar place they have been and they
have met the owners of the land before and upon their search they have
found out that the area is not free from government acquisition, they
end up colluding with the omonile and the omonile ends up promising to
give them a free land or induce them with money far above what the buyer
will give them for surveying the land. So when they are to go to the
land to investigate it with their GPS, they will search the coordinates
and come back with a favourable report that the land is good. Because
they are authorities in this department, you have no choice but to
accept their word. You end up giving them the contract to do your survey
plan and later on when you bring another surveyor there to investigate
the land you realize that the land is committed or not free. Even on the
survey plan of the land you have bought, they will be so bold as to
stamp FREE FROM ALL KNOWN ACQUISTION but in reality your land could be
sitting on a Pipeline or Coastal road for all they care. You confront
them and all you hear is SORRY or that the instruments they used then
were faulty blah blah blah.
The Omoniles have learnt to use them thoroughly to their own advantage
since they know you might want to do due diligence. The truth is that
it’s very rare or let’s say BIG MANISM that will make a Registered
Surveyor follow you to the site to do a routine land search. They
usually send their boys and whatever coordinates the boy writes for the
oga, the oga just stamps it as being okay without even seeing the land
sometimes. Some of The Alausa surveyors i trusted last year really
messed me up atimes and i had to give up recommending anyone again. Most
of the time the buyers end up blaming me for introducing them when in
reality i had no idea this was what they were doing to buyers and
collecting money plus free lands from the omoniles to distort the truth.
This Greed and Fraud extends to all sectors of our country and its
getting more difficult to see who you can trust.
When i confronted a past surveyor general of Oyo state on this issue, he
told me point blank that such practices will not stop unless they
change the procedure of checking land coordinates in Survey General's
office and the buyer is ready to pay the right fees for a thorough
survey check.
He says the law on survey check states that a survey plan must be done
on the site personally and after that a[b] LAND INFORMATION WILL BE DONE
WHICH COULD TAKE UP TO A WEEK AND THE SURVEYOR GENERAL WILL SIGN ON IT
TO SHOW WHETHER ITS FREE OR NOT AND IF IT ENDS UP NOT BEING FREE BUT IT
WAS ERRONEOUSLY SIGNED AS FREE, THE STATE GOVERNMENT WILL COMPENSATE THE
BUYER[/b].
But the flaw in this system means that the proposed buyer must shell out
almost a[b] N100,000 or more to do a survey plan and register it before
the Land Information is drawn up and gotten and if at the end it is
found that the land is not free, the buyers money goes into the drain
and he performs this process all over again till he gets the right
property to buy.[/b]
The Bitter truth is that how many people will be ready to go through
this process? Virtually 1% of buyers so we still have to rely on these
Surveyors doing their thing and hope for the best that they are
competent enough, loyal enough to you first and trust worthy to deliver.
So despite the Ups and Downs of with some dodgy Surveyors, i promised
myself not to introduce anybody to any surveyor personally again again
but i have also found out that not helping other people because of a few
dodgy surveyors means am not fulfilling Gods work to assist because of
my anger of the system and untrustworthy surveyors. I have now found 2
surveyors that i can alternate with to introduce people to help with
their various searches. I can only vouch for my own work that its almost
perfect and i take blames for my own short comings but not the short
comings of other people because i introduced them to you. While i
believe they are morally upright people that SHOULD DO YOUR JOBS
PERFECTLY, still have it at the back of your mind that they are human
beings and can also go hay wire so they must be monitored seriously.
Remember RULE NO 1: DONT TRUST ANYBODY.
So the Moral of this story brings the following TIPS:
a. Once i introduce you to the surveyor, whether private or Alausa, make
sure you know his office and where he works. Your not paying me money
and i dont share their money, so you must know who your giving money to
and if your satisfied with him.. So also get to know where the surveyor
works and know what works he or she has done I can only recommend based
on previous good works and monitor them for you but your the one paying
them.
b. Also when a surveyor is going on a search, make sure you ask him or
her about the GPS to take the coordinates. Most of them have computers
where the whole coordinates is stored in so once they punch the
coordinates in the system, they should have the answer in minutes.
Please try to make them show you the coordinates through the system
personally or scan it out to you. It replaces the land information to an
extent since your coming through the back door to be 100% sure of what
you’re buying. If your surveyor can't give you concrete facts to back up
his case, please abandon him in a Jiffy. Don’t get sentimental. I was a
victim in because i was sentimental. This 2011, Mr. Sentimental has
Died. No Dulling!!!
c. Most surveyors charge exorbitantly but one thing i will advise from
now on is this. Never pay a surveyor his full money until he has done
the survey plan and has placed the beacons on the land. Also demand for
the red copy after the survey has been done and pay that extra money for
land information search to cover you. PENNY WISE POUND FOOLISH is the
cause of so many landed problems and i vow to be very hard on them on
behalf of buyers who can’t have access to them because of distance or
work schedule.
d. Talking of the beacons: Make sure your surveyor places these beacons
on the ground after the survey has been drawn. The absence of beacons
lead to boundary disputes and gives omonile the opportunity to steal
lands because it cannot be identified properly. Don’t let lazy surveyors
take advantage of you.
CASE STUDY NO 3. IKORODU:
(How to Detect Land Owned by Another Person that is being offered for
sale)
A Friend of mine saw a bungalow he was interested in and decided to buy
it in Ikorodu. Upon search we found out that the Seller was the true
owner and had all the documents to back it up. In fact he was living in
that bungalow for the last 2 years after he just built it and put it up
for sale for N7Million. My friend was really interested in it and[b] he
had an agreement with the seller that he would pay him N4Million as the
first installment and the remaining balance of N3Million for the second
balance in 2 months time[/b]. Everything was agreed to and the first
N4Million payment was made to the seller in his lawyers office and as an
extra security for my friend i said the seller should collect the keys
of the bungalow to move in and after he settles the final balance, the
original documents such as the survey plan, deed of assignment and
original receipts including the building plan will be given to my
friend. The seller agreed and handed over the keys and took the
N4Million and a contract of sale was drafted and signed in his lawyer’s
office and witnessed by a lot of people.
My friend immediately took possession of the bungalow and moved some of
his things in to show intent / immediate ownership and hoped that before
the end of the 2 months he would balance up the remaining amount owned.
Due to the nature of his job off shore, he was away for about a month
and a half and when he got back to his bungalow; he noticed the bungalow
has been over taken by another person who had moved into the bungalow.
The place was repainted and totally newly furnished and all my friend's
loads and properties had disappeared as if they never existed . The new
owner claimed that he bought the same property from the Seller 2 weeks
before my friend came back for N10 Million Naira and he paid at once and
in exchange he was given the survey plan, deed of assignment and
receipt by the Seller and when he moved in he did not see any property
in the house to make him realize that it was being inhabited by anyone
previously. All attempts to locate the Seller till date has proved
abortive to either arrest him for fraud or sue him for fraud and breach
of contract. The lawyer and Agent kept on denying that they haven’t seen
the Seller but because of the pressure on the Seller's family, the
N4Million was refunded but my friend lost a lot in terms of other fees
he paid to get the property i.e survey fess, legal fees, agency fees,
miscellaneous etc and all his belongings he left in the house but at
least he was fortunate to get his original capital paid.
The Moral of this Case study provides the following Tips to learn from:
a. Be very careful before you attempt to enter into any installment
payment. Look at the people your dealing with. Investigate them
properly. Cover all your lose ends. More especially if you can pay at
once to get the property please follow that route. There are so many bad
people in the property business that are ready to exploit that loop
hole especially since if a second buyer comes forth they can resell that
same property to him for a higher price and refund your money if they
are kind enough or deduct from it and tell you stories.
b. Also if you’re buying a land, always try and look out for signs to
show that land doesn’t belong to the omonile. Once you see it has been
newly cut as if they want to start construction work, immediately know
its a stolen land because nobody will cut his land today and sell
tomorrow.
c. Also learn to know how to identify fenced lands and the blocks used.
If a seller is telling you that he just fenced the land but the fence
looks very old with the blocks as if it has being molded in the last 10
years, know the seller is trying to trick you to buy another person’s
land.
d. If the fenced walls looks new, ask him why he wants to sell so soon
after spending so much to fence it and try to get the architect who
fenced it for him to confirm. Use that trick that you need the same
architect to assist you in constructing a structure on the land and when
the seller begins to dilly dally about the whereabouts of the same
architect that built his own fence then you know he is a scammer.
d. Also when you get to a land and you see beacons around the land; ask
immediately for the survey plan to compare the name on the survey plan
with the sellers name and the beacon coordinates with the ones on the
ground. Also check the date the survey plan was made and the surveyors
address on the Survey plan to confirm and cross check whether it was the
same surveyor that did it. If the seller is playing games with
providing the survey plan for the same land that has beacons then you
should just walk away.
To be honest there are so many stories and tricks i learnt , but i have
to stop here for now and learn too from these tricks to become a better
and smarter Property Transactional Lawyer. Also please i implore you to
learn from these tips too to perfect your property transactions. Before
you part away with your money perform these searches or contact me. I
have become very very good at this in spotting fraudulent landed deals,
although not perfect and still learning new scams everyday but this year
i hope to save people millions and millions of Naira especially those
living abroad that do not have access to know what is going on here and
how to go about it and pray these land fraudsters change their ways and
learn to get a job instead of scheming on how to steal and defraud
people's money.
Next time i would add more tricks i learnt when people want to sell
Government Schemes, Omoniles who resell other people's lands bought and
how to protect your land from being resold and why its necessary to
document your papers in Alausa after you have bought it to prevent land
scammers from playing on your intelligence.
Cheers
Note
If your buying property from a traditional family or omonile as they are
called, its almost impossible to stop them. But there is a way i do it.
After negotiating for the land on your behalf and they tell me their
price and we come to a conclusion, we factor the price the omoniles are
demanding and add it to the purchase price and commit them to sign as
witness to the deed of assignment. That commitment irrevocably places a
burden on them and their assignees to leave you alone when you are
erecting structures and if you intend to sell that property to another
person i future. Usually it could be in another form of agreement called
a deed of ratification to be signed and honored by them that they
ratified this sale in exchange for so so so amount of Naira and your
home and dry.