 |
| Before You Buy A Land Or Property |
One of the most important things you need to know and understand as a real estate buyer is your land document.
While its actually very important.
3 out of every 10 people don’t really understand what these documents mean and how important it is to the safety of their purchase.
It’s also one of the ways through which people get ripped off of their money.
One of such cases is when you actually buy land from an estate and you don’t even bother to ask for the deed of assignment document after completing payment for the land
These documents is simply one of the most important land document you need to have to prove that a transaction on the said plot has occurred and you are the new owner of the land.
That said.
LET’S LOOK AT THE VARIOUS LAND DOCUMENT THAT EXISTS IN NIGERIA TODAY.
SURVEY PLAN.
A Survey plan is a document that helps show you the boundary measurement of an estate you want to purchase in.
It gives you the description of that land and other vital information that you need to know when an investigation is done with that document.
You need to understand that surveyors are the people that are in charge of handling survey issues and this is always been regulated by the surveyor-general of the state where the land is located.
This document shows you everything you need to know about the land.
You get to know if the land is free or not and how you do this is by giving your surveyor this survey plan to help you to conduct a land search to know if it’s free from government acquisition and knows precisely where the landmark is.
Lands are always categories by the state into several aspects… Agriculture, Residential, Industrial or Commercial.
If you eventually find out that the said estate you want to buy is currently sitting in areas that is not in line with where it’s meant to be.
Then it’s a red flag that you need to stay away from.
But you need to know this.
Survey plan can also be FAKED.
here is how you can authenticate if a survey plan is real or not.
– The name of the owner of the land surveyed
– The address or description of the land surveyed
– The size of the land surveyed
– The drawn-out portion of the land survey and mapped out on the survey plan document
– The beacon number
– The name of the surveyor who drew up the plan and the date it was done
– A stamp showing that the land is free from Government acquisition or not.
So please be guided with this when you are considering buying into an estate
EXCISION.
I will have to take you back on a story on this.
You see prior before the land use decree on the 28th of March 1978.
All lands belonged to a powerful set of traditional family who determines which land is to be sold and which is to be kept.
As a result of the influence, they also had. Most lands was given out where always on lease which means the land still belonged to them.
And it was actually difficult having to buy land during that time.
But thanks to the government who created the land use decree.
All lands now belong to the state government who oversee the land.
This act with some other laws that were created make is possible for the governor of the state to have the power to acquire more lands for its own public use for its citizens7
While this is been done.
These original owners of the lands are still recognized by the government which is why they give a certain portion of the land to the original owners of each area.
Hence the term Excision.
Excision means taking a part from a whole which belongs to a group of people or family.
This is usually recorded and documented in the official government gazette of the state.
But where lots of issues come up is that…
Lots of money have been lost to people from estate owners and family that sells out land that is still in processing…
This term is called ‘Excision in Process’
And when this fails… It’s the buyers that actually lose their money at the end of the day.
So if the land is not Fully Excised….
Please Stay off and stop patronizing people telling you to come to buy cheap land because its title is excision in process.
Don’t get Exited in the process of buying a wrong land or property because you are looking for cheap land buy.
GAZETTE
Let’s take a look at Victoria island, ikoyi and lekki. Prior before now.
These whole areas was one big community called ONIRU.
It has an approximate total square meter of about 100,000.
When the government became interested in that area.
They took 70,000 square meters for its own personal use as an urban area. it was recorded in the government gazette plus also stated that the remaining 30,000 square meters has been left alone for the traditional family to do what they want with it.
So what is a gazette?
It’s an official record book where all special government details are spelt out, detailed and recorded. A gazette will show the communities or villages that have been granted excision and the number of acres or hectares the government has given to them.
With this remaining land, the traditional family can sell and sign your document only the land given to them by the government.
If at the end of the day, the government later changes the plan to use the remaining land that was given to the family.
The government will compensate you so long as your land is within the excised land that was given to the community.
So how can you truly know if a land is truly gazetted?
By simply getting a surveyor to help chart the site and do his investigation at the surveyor general’s office to confirm if it’s within the government area or within the areas given to the family to use as they wish.
Here is a how-to recognize a Real Gazette Document.
– The first page must have the logo of Nigeria and the inscription LAGOS STATE OF NIGERIA GAZETTE
– Underneath, it must show the number volume, page, date and location it was signed into law and also have the content of the list of villages, settlement and parcel of land excised back to the community.
-It must show the description of the area been excised.
– It must show the number of an acre or hectares that is been excised to the village
– It must show where the boundary of the beacon start and stop.
CERTIFICATE OF OCCUPANCY [C OF O]
This is one of the land titles that if you can purchase as a person, you can simply have the peace of mind that you are indeed buying into an estate that knows what it does.
A certificate of occupancy is a land document issued by the state government to officially lease any land under the state to you for 99 years.
Remember… All lands belong to the government.
A c of o document is OFFICIALLY recognized as a land document for demonstrating the right to land.
So if you can get a genuine property that has this… then you can completely safe from any hassle that might want to ensue from it.
In fact… I will advise and recommend buyers to stick with lands with C of O
DEED OF ASSIGNMENT.
One of the documents that truly shows that you are the new owner of land you just bought is the deed of assignment.
And still many people don’t even ask for this.
When problem starts from a land especially if its an omo onile issues i.e. you bought land from one of them.
If they can’t provide you with the deed of assignment and you still went ahead with the transaction.
Then sorry is your case.
You need to understand this.
The deed of assignment is very important because that’s the one identifiable document you can present to anyone that you actually concluded a land transaction.
This document contains important information about the land transaction that is been done. It states that there is an agreement between the seller of the land [estate] and a buyer of the land that he has transferred all his right, title, ownership of that land to the seller that has just purchased the land.
GOVERNOR’S CONSENT.
When you buy land with C of O.
That’s a document that can be presented to the governor and the public that the land has actually changed hands to you.
According to Section 22 of the LAND USE ACT 1978 as amended, this states thus:
“It shall not be lawful for the holder of a statutory right of occupancy granted by the Governor to alienate his right of occupancy or any part thereof by assignment, mortgage, transfer of possession, sublease or otherwise howsoever without the consent of the Governor first had and obtained”
Once you have purchased land with C of O, it is advisable to proceed to obtain a governors consent for that piece.
One of the good benefits of doing this right after getting land that is a C of O document is that you can easily transfer your land to another person without having to go through omo onile or family baale to sign your deed and Form 1c which are compulsory requirement needed to process governors consent.
Receipt
Most people always mistake a receipt for deed of assignment and its completely wrong.
Your receipt just shows that the seller has acknowledged payments required for the land.
Always ensure you collect the receipt once you make a purchase for any land you are interested in.
I hope you enjoyed this article.
No comments:
Post a Comment