7 Land Documents You Must Know Before Buying Land.

The listed documents below are the necessary documents to consider when buying land.

 1: SURVEY PLAN

This is the land document that shows the boundary measurements of a parcel of land to give an accurate measurement and description of that land. A Survey Plan is a very important land document you must ask for whenever you are trying to buy land. In fact, it is the most important because it allows you to know everything about the land. It enables you to know if the land you are planning to buy is free or not. A Survey Plan helps you to know if the land is for Agricultural, Residential, Industrial, or Commercial Purposes.

The following pieces of information are what makes the Survey Plan Authentic:

1. The name of the owner of the land surveyed.
2. The Address or description of the land surveyed.
3. The size of the land surveyed.
4. The drawn-out portion of the land survey and mapped out on the survey plan document.
5. The beacon numbers.
6. The surveyor who drew up the survey plan and the date it was drawn up.
7. A stamp showing the land is either free from Government acquisition or not.

2: EXCISION

Excision simply means taking apart from a whole and that part which 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 anytime without compensation, even if you bought it “Legitimately” from the Baale or the Original dwellers on the land.

Hope you understand why this land document is very important before you buy any land. This land document helps you to know if the Land is FREE or Under Government Acquisition.

 3: GAZETTE

According to the Land Use Act, all land belongs to the government, meaning the Governor is the owner of all land even the one in your village, and he will determine what to do with the land, not even your Igwe, Oba, or Emir can query him. So, it is only when the Governor has taken the land he wants to use that he gives the remaining to the traditional family to do whatever they want to do with it.

So, a Gazette is an Official record book where all special government details are spelled out, detailed, and recorded. A Gazette will show the communities or villages that have been granted excision and the number of acres or hectares of land 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. A Gazette is a very powerful instrument the community owns and can replace a Certificate of Occupancy to grant title to the Villagers.

A community owning a gazette as a land document 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 for you if you purchase lands within those excised acres or hectares of land. If the government based on some reasons best known to them 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 Followings Are Features of a Gazette:

The first page of a Gazette must have the following unless it is a dubious or fake Gazette

1. The Logo of the Country and the inscription of the title “LAGOS STATE OF NIGERIA OFFICIAL GAZETTE”
2. Underneath it must have the Number, Volume, Page, Date, and the Location it was signed into law e.g No 26 in pages 200 to 291, Volume 87 dated 14th of August 2011 and have the contents of the list of the Villages, Settlements, and parcels of land excised back to the community.

The Inner pages will show the following:

1. The description of the Area or Village excised
2. The number of Acres or Hectares of land excised to the Village
3. Where the boundaries of the beacons start and stop
4. The page the description of the Village excised is.

 4: CERTIFICATE OF OCCUPANCY

A Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) is a Land Document issued by the State Government to officially leases any land under the state to you (the applicant), for 99 yrs. As already indicated above, all lands belong to the Government. A-C of O however is the officially recognized Land Document for demonstrating Right to a Land. What happens after 99 years? That question is still a subject of debate among experts. Most have adopted a wait-and-see attitude. Others postulate that as the new owner of the land, you the buyer can renew the certificate of occupancy when it expires. That makes sense, but for now, it’s largely a case of “We shall see when we get there”

5: DEED OF ASSIGNMENT

It’s funny to hear people buy land without asking for a Deed of Assignment, forgetting that this is the only Land Document that shows ownership of land. When issues arise from that land transaction, these people, most time, scream they have been duped by Omonile, because they can’t provide a Deed of Assignment to that transaction which means they have no claim legally.

A Deed of Assignment is one of the most important documents YOU MUST HAVE when you conclude a Land Transaction. 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 Seller that has just bought the land.

The Deed of Assignment contains very pertinent information for a real estate transaction. For one, it spells out the date when the ownership of the property transfers from one owner to the other. The deed also gives a specific description of the property that is included in the transfer of ownership.

6. GOVERNOR’S CONSENT

Just like it sounds, a Governor’s Consent is a land document that is obtained whenever you buy land with C of O. It’s the land document that allows the Governor and the general public to know that the land in question has changed hands. 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”

A purchaser of land needs to perfect his or her document by obtaining the Governor’s consent to have a complete rest of the mind.

An advantage of having a Governor’s consent is that you can transfer your land to another person without going to the Omoniles or Family Baale to sign your deed and Form 1c which are compulsory requirements needed before you can process Governor’s consent.

 7: _RECEIPT

This land document is the list of all and is just for the seller to acknowledge that he/she has received the due money he/she wants to sell the land. The mistake most people make is to think a Receipt is the same thing as a Deed Of Assignment.

 Credit: Opera news