•How To Know If It Is
In Nigeria today, for prospective land owners seeking to buy land, caution is the word. And this is because there are land fraudster, land grabbers and dupes everywhere and Lagos is no exception. This is why you must ensure adequate steps and findings are carried out before you can commit yourself to paying for any land or property.
Determining the genuineness of a land document has been a big issue in the real estate sector, especially for first time land owners, and most especially for those who purchase their land in Lagos State. In case you don’t know, buying a land is not like any other type of purchase where you make payment for the product and your receipt is issued immediately.
In land acquisition, there are documents (titles) you need to have in your possession in order to show that you are the legal owner of the landed property even though you have paid for the land. So after paying for the land, you still need to obtain the land title to make you the legal owner of the property. Obtaining a land title requires following due process and taking certain steps.
There are steps to guide you through the process or carry out the process for you, simply because these people have an expert knowledge of the real estate sector.
However, if you chose to carry out this process yourself, here are some of the guidelines for you to follow to verify the authenticity of a property document in Lagos. Before the verification of any document, it is important you know the right documents to ask for. For most people though, there is no adequate knowledge as per the land documents to request for other than C of O. If you are in this category, here are some important documents that prove your ownership of a certain land: Survey Plan, Excision, Gazette, Certificate of occupancy, Deed of assignment, Governor’s consent, Receipt, Letter of Allocation, Deed of Transfer, Power of Attorney, Contract of sale.
These documents are proof that you are the legal owner of the land. Keep in mind that some of these documents attract additional fees for you to get them. For example, survey plans usually cost between N100,000 to N300,000, depending on the location of the land.So before paying for the landed property,
ask for a copy of a survey plan.
This is a document that shows the boundary of a parcel of land and that gives an accurate measurement and description of that land. It is usually issued by surveyors who are members of the office of the surveyor general in Lagos state.
Upon receiving the survey plan, get a competent Surveyor to ensure the site you’ve visited falls within the stipulated survey plan. If the surveyor confirms that the land falls within the stipulated plan, you can go ahead to
Ask for a copy of the land document
Now that you and your surveyor have confirmed the genuineness of the survey plan, it is time to request for the document of the land for verification. After getting the document, go to Land Bureau at Alausa in Ikeja Lagos state to verify the authenticity of the land document.
After confirming the authenticity of the land document, go for site inspection(if you have not been to the land). If you are satisfied with what you see on the land, you can now proceed to make payment.
While making payment, ensure you document every single part of the transaction, from the cost of land to the survey fees. Treat every land transaction as it should be; a business transaction.
Note: A title is a legal way of saying you have the ownership of a certain piece of land. So just making payment for a land doesn’t make you a legal owner till you get the right and genuine titles. Getting these documents requires following due process and steps which takes a lot of time and work to do.
– ISAAC ABIMBADE
