Documents to check before you buy land in Nigeria

When you buy land, you are not really buying soil. You are buying a bundle of legal claims to it, and that bundle is described entirely on paper. A survey beacon, a fence or a title deed printed on a computer has no legal standing in Nigeria; the documents do.

The practical consequence is that a perfectly good piece of land can still be impossible to build on or resell if the paperwork underneath it is wrong. Most land disputes that reach the courts are documentation disputes that could have been caught at the point of purchase.

A Certificate of Occupancy, usually shortened to "C of O", is the document that most buyers are ultimately trying to obtain. It is issued by the relevant state government, through the ministry or agency responsible for land and urban development, and it is the state formally recognising that a person or company has been granted the right to occupy a defined area.

Because it is issued by the state and registered, a C of O is the most defensible form of title you can hold. It carries the allocation figure, the survey reference and the holder, and it is the document a bank will normally want to see before advancing any mortgage facility.

Not all land in Nigeria has reached the stage where a C of O can be issued. A large amount of land is held under a "Right of Occupancy" arrangement, and land that is still inside the process of being formally carved out of its parent allocation is described as being under "Excision in Progress".

Buying such land is not automatically a bad decision. It can be a perfectly legitimate purchase, and in some markets it is the only way to access land in a given area. But you should understand exactly what you are buying, and the key question is whether the excision has actually been approved and gazetted, or whether it is still only a promise from a promoter.

The survey plan identifies the land physically: its boundaries, the beacon numbers, the area, and where it sits relative to neighbouring plots. A plan is only meaningful if it has been registered with the state survey department, because an unregistered plan can be produced for almost any piece of land.

A registered plan is what lets you compare what you have been promised against what actually exists on the ground. Ask to see the registered plan, and check that the allocation reference, the area and the plot number match the documents you have been given.

Even a clean title becomes yours through a transfer document. Depending on the situation, that will be a Deeds of Assignment, a Deed of Transfer, a Sub-lease or an under-lease, and it must be drafted, executed and registered in the right order.

Two further requirements are specific to Nigeria. Stamp duty is payable on most property transfers and is collected by the state revenue service. If the acquisition involves a sub-allocation rather than a whole allocation, you will also be dealing with a sub-survey, and your interest is only as good as the head lease above it.

Verifying documents is straightforward in principle and is routinely skipped in practice. Set aside time to do it before any money changes hands, and use a Nigerian solicitor who is independent of the seller.

Confirm the state of the title at the Land Registry or the relevant ministry of land. Confirm the seller is who they say they are, and that the person signing is authorised to sign. If the seller is a company, search it at the Corporate Affairs Commission and check its status, its registered details and whether any charges are registered against it.

The pressure to settle quickly is the single most common thread in land fraud. It is also the single most reliable warning sign. Legitimate sellers are rarely harmed by a week of verification.

If you find yourself being asked to pay before the documents have been seen, being told a fee is a "special offer", or being introduced to a "regulator" or "lawyer" who is really the seller's associate, stop. The same applies to being shown a document whose names, dates or reference numbers do not match the land being sold.

Most buyers who get this right do a small number of things repeatedly. They pay for a solicitor before they pay a deposit. They verify the title at the registry themselves rather than accepting a copy. And they walk away from deals where the seller is more invested in urgency than in documentation.

If you want a second opinion on a specific property, send us the details and we will tell you what we would want to see before recommending a purchase.