Stories by Maduka Nweke,
[email protected] 08034207864
For various reasons, several people, especially new investors, venture into property business without first acquiring the land appropriately via procurement of necessary documents. This has cost some landed property owners more than they ought to have paid.
For the avoidance of doubts, anyone going into property whether for business or for residence, it is advisable he knows the land, surveys it and finds out if it is not part of government acquisition in state or local government, mapped out for the original land owners or whether it falls within the area the government has taken for public development.
It is also important to ascertain how the land in question is gazetted and under which heading it was recorded. You also must have an agreement document between you, the buyer, and the seller, to permit you to take actions on the land. From that point and with these at hand, you proceed to apply for the certificate of occupancy (C of O). Those who are unable to go through all these are likely to fall prey to zealous government officials and eventually lose the landed property.
In this week’s edition of property page, we want to share with you definitions of land titles for your understanding as postulated by authorities in real estate and government officials. With you having a clear understanding of all land titles, you would be guided aright when you are making investment decisions in real estate. Some of the basic documents clients are advised to understand their full definitions including but not limited to the underlisted as there are many other petty terminologies we may not explicitly discuss.
Survey plan of the land in question
For one to lay claim to any landed property, he must have surveyed the piece of land and have the survey plan. A survey plan is a document that measures the boundary of a parcel of land to give an accurate measurement and description of the land.
The people that handle survey issues are surveyors and they are regulated by the office of the Surveyor General in any state of the federation where the deed is taking place. Whether the survey plan is done in Igbakwu, Onitsha, Ibadan, Kaduna or Gombe, it must contain the following pieces of information: the identity of the owner of the land surveyed; the area description of the land surveyed; the area covered by the land surveyed; the drawn out portion of the land survey and mapped out on the survey plan document; the beacon numbers; the surveyor who drew up the survey plan and the date it was drawn up; a stamp showing the land is either free from government acquisition or not. Please note that there are two kinds of survey plan – approved and provisional survey excision.
Excision
A new person in a state may not know where government has mapped out as no go area. In this regard, the Omoniles may deceive the buyer into committing a huge sum of money into a land that has been claimed by government for public development.
But with your knowledge of these and other laws, you can understand that it is legal for the governor, who is the owner of all lands in the state, to actually have the power to acquire any land compulsorily for the purpose of providing amenities for the greater good of the citizens. This may include your own land.
Fortunately, the government recognises that indigenes of different sections of the country have a right to existence and also a right to the land of their birth. Hence, it is customary for state governments to cede a portion of land to the original owners (natives) of each area. If you are buying from these families in these areas, you are then safe from government acquisition.
An excision means basically taking apart from a whole and that part that has been excised will be recorded and documented in the official government gazette of that state. In other words, not having an excision means the land could be seized by the government any time without compensating you even if you bought it “legitimately” from the Baale or the original dwellers on the land.
Gazette
Whenever government acquires a land, such land is always gazetted. A gazette is an official record book where all special government details are spelt out, detailed and recorded. It will show the communities or villages that have been granted excision and the number of acres or hectares of land as the case may be that the government has given to them. It is within those excised acres or hectares that the traditional family is entitled to sell its lands to the public and not anything outside those hectares of land given or excised to them.
Gazette is a very powerful instrument the community owns and can replace a C of O to grant title to the villagers. A community owning a gazette can only sell lands to an individual within those lands that have been excised to them and the community or family head of that land has the right to sign your documents if you purchase lands within those excised acres or hectares of land.
If the government, based on reasons best known to it, decides to revoke or acquire your land, you will be entitled to compensation as long as it’s within the excised lands given to that community.
The best way to know whether a land is under acquisition or has an excision that has been covered by a gazette is to get a surveyor to chart the site and take it to the surveyor general’s office to carry out investigation to confirm whether it falls within the gazette and spell out which particular location it can be found.
Deed of assignment
A Deed of Assignment is an agreement between the seller of a land or property and a buyer of that land or property showing evidence that the seller has transferred all his rights, his title, his interest and ownership of that land to the buyer that has just bought the land.
When the Deed of Assignment has been exchanged between both parties, it has to be recorded in the land registry to show legal proof that the land has exchanged hands and the public should be aware of the transaction. Such recorded Deed of Assignment comes in the form of either a governor’s consent or registered conveyance.
Certificate of Occupancy (C of O)
Any C of O issued by any state government officially leases the land to the buyer or the applicant for a period of 99 years. As already indicated above, all lands belong to the government. In this wise, after the certified 99 years, the government can reconsider the earlier agreement not to lease it again.
A C of O, however, is the officially recognised document for demonstrating right to a land. After the 99 years, the buyer can renew the C of O. Most have adopted a wait-and-see attitude.
Edo govt set to address 300,000 housing deficit
In order to reduce the acute housing shortage for its citizens, the Edo State Government, last week, promised to address the 300,000 housing deficit and provide affordable houses for the people.
Speaking on the issue, the Deputy Governor, Philip Shaibu, said the state government was willing to build affordable houses across the state to address the over 300,000 housing deficit faced by the people.
He stated this at a two-day workshop on housing with the theme, “Quest for Adequate and Sustainable Real Estate for Edo People”, organised by the state government in Benin.
The deputy governor who represented the Governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, said the nation is faced with over 17 million housing deficit and Edo State is contributing over 300,000 to it. He, however, assured the people that the present administration would do all within its reach to address the deficit.
“I challenge the participants in this workshop to come up with affordable models that are within the reach of the masses unlike the housing schemes obtainable in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. Those houses were acquired by the rich and not the civil servants whom it was meant for and at the end of the day, the deficits remained while the houses stand empty because the costs were too high. So, we don’t want that in Edo State. We want affordable houses for both the average and low income earners,” he said.
Shaibu said the workshop was to use Edo as a model to other states in terms of housing. “This workshop is a real business that would turn Edo State into a hub utilising the geographical location,” he emphasised.
He noted that the present administration is organising several workshops to have the template and blueprint to drive the process of development in the state such that when commissioners and other aides come on board, there will already be a sense of direction and something to work on.
According to him, a system that does not plan is planning to fail, as such, the Obaseki administration was keen on avoiding failure, hence, it has embarked on these workshops to develop the state and make it the envy of other states in the country.
Shaibu revealed that the draft of a bill that would be sent to the House of Assembly was being worked on by the state government to give legal backing to building plans in the state with a view to addressing the housing deficit in the long run.
In his address, Chairman of the workshop, Alhaji Ali Magashi of Aso Savings and Loans Limited, commended Governor Obaseki for the well-thought out workshop on housing, saying that it goes to show that when educated people are at the helm of affairs in the political scene, things will be less difficult.
Speaking on the topic, “Affordable Housing Financing in a Developing Economy”, Magashi said it is regrettable that there is no appreciable success in the crusade for affordable housing development in the country. He, therefore, tasked the participants to see the workshop as an opportunity to proffer solution to the housing challenges not only in the state but the country at large.
“The governor is saying that he needs the best for his people and wants us to sit down and brainstorm and tell him how to do it. This is a challenge to us and we need to stand up to this challenge and make this initiative of the governor work by making housing financing work in Nigeria,” he said.
Magashi also suggested that the governor constitutes an advisory committee that would serve as a monitoring team that would give him feedback on the implementation of his housing policies.
The two-day workshop, which commenced on Thursday, April 28, 2017 had stakeholders from real estate and financial institutions from across the country in attendance.