4 IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS TO HELP
YOU INVESTIGATE THE GENUINENESS OF ANY LAND IN LAGOS
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Lagos State is known to be so notorious when it comes to buying of property or land. This is because of so many fraudulent touts surrounding the business of owning a land/property, so much so, that you won’t even know what has hit you once they are done.
Most lands in Lagos are owned/inherited by indigenous families passed down to them by their
The real problem comes when there are so many members of the family that are divided in terms of claiming ownership of the lands and how the land is truly allotted to them.
Before you know it, a property that is meant to be shared by a family of 5 is now being claimed by an uncle or aunty. Or in worst case, you bought a land from the wrong family or from someone who has no right to sell it.
This is when they either ask you to pay more or deploy touts to threaten you into leaving the property.
Do not fall for their sweet mouth and coercion of this Omo-nile.
There are documents that you can request from them or whoever wants to sell a land to you. These documents can be verified at various government office to know the genuineness of the land or its owner.
This is by far the most import document required to investigate the genuineness of a land or its owner. With a copy of this you can go to the Land Bureau office in Lagos State and do a geographical search on the land.
This piece of document saves you from buying Government reserved lands also known as Committed Lands. These are lands that government has designed for future development, road expansion, or reserved as wetland.
If you fail to investigate that land using the survey and you end up buying a government committed land, you will either lose the land and the building whenever government feels ready to recover such property or you are asked to pay a huge some of money for Ratification. Ratification in this sense means you are going to pay the Government the full current price of the land and taxes included. This fee is non-negotiable.
This is the second most important document you need to trace the history of how the property or land has reached the present owner. It relates all the information in respect of the true owners of the land before it was passed on or bought by Mr A and how MR A sold it to Mr B and How Mr B intend to sell it to you.
With this document, you can trace mostly the original families who owns a land and in case there is any dispute as to the ownership of the land you can know how it has been transferred and if you are dealing with the real and current owner of the property.
You can do a thorough search in court or at the Lagos State Secretariat in Alausa to know the real and current owner. All you need is just the family name of the person or Omo-nile that want to sell a land to you, and with that, a search can be conducted. You can also ask for a copy of the deed of assignment and use that to aid your search at the relevant office.
Any land with any of these 3 documents are considered to be genuine, because these documents are government issued. The only problem is to confirm if they are not fakes, and this can very easily be investigated because the record is there in Alausa.
Any property that has either a Global C/O, Private Certificate of Occupancy, Government Allocation or Governors Consent is considered a good buy that would give you peace of mind.
This is a document that records and states the areas the government has willingly given to a particular family or community to sell and that the government will not acquire it for what so ever reason except it duly notifies them.
The major characteristics of a gazette provides two (2) things.
1. The area where the portion of land is situated e.g Ikotun
2. The coordinates of the total area allotted to them e.g a beacon numbers that denotes where the Land given to the family starts and stops. This is known as an Excision.
This means that from a large portion of land let’s say 50 plots, the government has excised 20 to the family and has taken 30 plots for its own use. Those 20 plots will now be documented in a book known as a Gazette.
Now the danger of government gazette lands is that you as a buyer can’t know where the land starts and stops right from the gazette. You will need an experienced surveyor that can come to that gazetted area, map out the coordinates and tell you precisely whether your property falls inside the gazette or not.
There have been instances where people purchased a lands that was actually outside the gazetted excision and still believe they are inside the gazetted excision coordinates.
Do your due diligence and never play with a government owned land. It always ends in tears or bankruptcy. Never trust an Omonile, verify!
Do buy a land or property in Lagos State without reading our FREE guide to owning a property in Lagos.
If you need any of our service(s) for your property in any location within Lagos State, please visit our service page to request that service.
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