Julius Nnamani Esq.

Sep 05, 2023

PURCHASING LANDED PROPERTIES IN  NIGERIA -  ISSUES ARISING BY JULIUS NNAMANI, ESQ(1)

A person who wants to acquire landed property in Lagos State or in any part of Nigeria should be prepared to consult those that will help him or her to carry out due process before dropping his or her money.

It is required that a prospective buyer of  landed property  in Lagos State should watch out for zoning precepts / master plan in different parts of Lagos State. 

Aside from different types of land such as community/family land, land subject to Will/ Testamentary disposition or estate landed property, mortgage property, several state governments have  master  plans for different parts of the  State. One hears of Agric zoned land, industrial layout, and different other policy descriptions of land by the Government. Those lands set aside by Government bearing in mind, the use to which the land will be applied for purpose of development can be described as acquisitions. 

A Legal Practitioner is required to help a prospective purchaser of Real Property to carry out due process over the particular land which he has interest in.

Such a Solicitor is expected to check out for the following type of titles.

(1)   GLOBAL ACQUISITION (FREE OR COMMITTED)

Where land is under general acquisition it can be free or committed in future. A general acquisition can be released if an individual purchased a land that was under acquisition without going through an excision process. Such lands can go through another process called Ratification or regularization in which the land owner pays for the land to be ratified or to be regularized. In other words regularization is a process of allocating Government land to someone who had previously occupied landed property without lawful authority from the Government.

(2)   EXCISION

Excision is also a process whereby Government releases land to the owners following a settlement between the Government and family or land owners.

(3)   GAZETTE

A gazette is an official record book where special Government details are kept spelt out detailed and recorded. A gazette will show hectares or acres that have been either excised or acquired the best way to know whether the land is under acquisition or excision is to get a cadastral surveyor to chart the site and take it to the surveyor general office for confirmation. 

(4)   C OF O

After the enactment of the Land Use Act in March 1978 where all lands in the territory of the state were vested in the Governor of the state every land owner now had only right of use of the land in which case Certificate of Occupancy is issued to the users in the urban areas upon application to the Governor, while land in the rural areas attract customary rights of occupancy.

(5)   GOVERNOR’S CONSENT 

Any subsequent  transaction on landed property that has certificate of occupancy requires the consent of the Governor of any state where the land is situated.

(6)  FAMILY OR COMMUNITY LANDS: Landed properties owned by families or communities have their own procedure for registering of such landed properties.