Legal Matters To Consider When Buying Property In Lagos

In Nigeria, it is very difficult to buy property without a horde of “experts” attempting to sway you with their advice. This is because of the highly convoluted nature of the legal framework in real estate. Even with the advice of experts, you still require a good measure of grace to avoid falling into unforeseen problems. In Lagos state, in particular, the steps taken when purchasing property depends on whether you are buying empty land, an uncompleted building or a completed building.

Empty Land:

Our advice on the purchase of land will be two fold
A Registered Title
B Unregistered title

Under Registered title, you have at least two options;

a) Registration after a private transfer i.e. in the instance of a sublease, deed of assignment, etc.
b) Registration by virtue of a direct allocation by the Government i.e. In the case of sublease or a Certificate of Occupancy (C of O).

Under Unregistered title – There are at least five options;

1. Sale by a private person who purchased from a registered owner but has himself not registered his title
2. Sale by a private person who purchased from an unregistered owner and had not registered his/her title.
3. Sale by the Omo Oniles (Landowners) who have the title of a land that has been allocated to them by the government via Gazette or C of O, but have not processed their C of O.
4. Sale by the Omo Onile- who are selling land not yet allocated to them under the circumstances mentioned in c above. The land has not been excised and is still technically under government acquisition.
5. Sale by the Omo Onile – i.e. under acquisition but not under commitment
6. Sale by the Omo Onile of land under acquisition and which has also been committed.

Let’s start with the purchase of land covered by a Certificate of Occupancy or other registered titles. You must undertake the following steps

1. Sight the original registered document

2.  Conduct a search at the relevant lands registry to ascertain;

a. if it is the allottee who is disposing of the property
b. how many years are outstanding on the life of the property (out of the 99 years usual life span)
c. if the property is encumbered i.e. mortgage, prior sale, long lease, outstanding taxes or rents, or revocation.
d.in certain cases to ascertain lis pendens.

3. If your Lawyer is satisfied with the search and physical inspection of the Land conforms to the details on the title documents, and then it is time to draw up legal documentation of exchange of the title and payments.

4. Upon this exchange, it is important that your title is registered at the relevant lands registry. The importance of such registration shall be the subject of a future thesis.

TO BE CONTINUED.

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