P:S: Please i beg you, those that have nothing intelligent to say or are not conversant about landed issues don't derail this thread or post comedic comments to get noticed. It's a very important topic for People interested in owing lands or have bought lands that have problems and its better advised you just skim through it and walk away rather than just post something that is meant to upset other people.

Every time I write an article about the perils of buying a land without doing a search, I get a lot of criticisms, hate mails and spiteful comments from people. Some go as far as saying am a harbinger of bad news or creating mere fictional stories to boost my Land verification business. So I have decided to expose the folly of one client (Name withheld) for attempting to purchase a land without going through due process to verify a land and I will show you the result of purchasing that property.

The first thing that happened was that he called me to inquire about my Omonile lawyer land verification services early this year and I told him everything we do, our cost for investigating it and how we would advise him on whether to buy the land or not based on the information derived both from the seller, their agents and the land itself. The moment he heard the cost of the search as N50,000 he began to criticize me to trying to extort him and offered to pay less and I bluntly refused because of the research gone into fixing the cost of the search and paying all the relevant authorities and interested parties to get the true information. He finally told me it wasn’t worth it and he would go there and investigate himself to buy it and I wished him well in his endeavours since he probably knew more about investigating defective lands in Lagos than me.

After some time he called me that he had purchased the Land for N5Million and I should help him do the deed of assignment. I bluntly refused saying I would never ascribe my signature to a document that I know nothing about especially a land i haven't researched myself. He later asked me to also get a surveyor for him to do his survey plan and i refused to give him one because to me it was a medicine after death approach. He further attacked me for being a charge and bail lawyer that knows next to nothing and told me he would get a surveyor to do his survey plan so that he can build. He continued to berate me for being too negative based on the number of mansions in that environment that were springing up and I wanted to deprive him of not living amongst his class of people and I humbly apologized for being a straight shooter and wished him well in his endeavors.

3 days ago, I noticed he was calling me frantically whilst I was in a meeting and when I responded to one of the calls, he told me he was in trouble and he wanted to apply for his C of O or governors consent so he was advised to do his Land Information certificate and the result of the search is below:

He bought a COMMITTED LAND that had been allocated to a PRIVATE ESTATE to develop their own RESIDENTIAL ESTATE.

For those that are unaware of what a Committed Land is, i will give you a brief lesson on it. Lands for sale are either free from Government acquisition, Under Acquisition or Committed Lands.

A LAND FREE FROM ACQUISITION is a very safe land to buy because the Government has not acquired it and has no plans to acquire it in future to do a project. If by para venture the Government acquires it, you will be paid compensation because it was taken from you unannounced and they have already given you the go ahead to buy it and build on it.

A LAND UNDER ACQUISITION IS PART BAD AND PART GOOD. Part bad because the Government has acquired the land for a future Use but due to SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES, it might in its infinite wisdom decide to give the Land back to the community but in return you are going to be sanctioned heavily for buying A LAND UNDER ACQUISITION by paying a lot of money to the government to RATIFY OR REGULARIZE THAT LAND before you can get documents to that land.

A COMMITTED LAND IS A BAD LAND. No stories and nothing can change what is coming or passing through that land. A Bridge or Estate or Airport or a project deemed worthy by the Government must take place on that land and no amount of bribery, coercion, pleading, settlement or crying will change the fact that the building on it won't be demolished.

The Omoniles, sellers, agents and surveyor had all hoodwinked him into buying a land that was Fully committed. He told me that they said the land was about to get a Gazette and It was under processing and he was shown some papers to prove it. Little did he know that he was buying an extremely defective land. The survey plan he was shown at first that was owned by the Seller was drawn up in such a fraudulent way that it showed it was "free from acquisition" on the survey plan and the new surveyor he hired just reproduced, copied and pasted the old survey plan of the seller and gave to the client not knowing it was a land belonging to a PRIVATE ESTATE who have been fighting the Baale of that community and Omoniles for selling their estate lands stupidly and Alausa was ready to fight for them too. The Land Bureau at Alausa have resolved to demolish all the houses, fences, foundations and any other structure found in that committed area and the Millions or billions of Naira used to buy these lands or build those houses have been turned into waste.

Now he is asking me what he should do and he would pay anything for me to get him out of this quagmire. So my people what is the way forward because to me his N5Million is gone, The Omoniles cannot be found after they have spent his money to buy Sallah Rams and marry new wives, The lawyer that drafted the agreement is speaking in tongues, The Agent is not picking his calls, The Seller has traveled to Dubai, Surveyor is saying he wasn’t contracted to take coordinates etc. Please help me advise Mr One chance. Besides the Land in question is at Ibeju-Lekki, so those that have lands there that do not know the status of their Land or took a big gamble to buy lands before investigating it, be very afraid because deep down I even thought the area this man bought was not committed. ( I purposely deleted the name of the client, surveyor and Area so as not to rouse suspicion). So don't throw away your life savings and your children's future by dashing Omoniles or fraudulent land sellers your hard earned money. Do a land verification to give you peace of mind unless an unplanned demolition may happen to your beautiful house in future.

LEARN MORE WAYS ON HOW TO BUY HASSLE FREE LANDS OR WANT TO SAVE YOUR EXISTING LANDS FROM DEMOLITION by Visiting www.omonilelawyer.com. You will be glad you did.

5Million down the drain! Is there anyway he can recover at least something?

Marpol: 5Million down the drain! Is there anyway he can recover at least something?

My brother am confused too. He has been so depressed and texting me frantically to help him out. He told me he took a loan to buy the land and he wanted to put a commercial structure there. He said he has even gone ahead to pay the architect and paid money to building suppliers and builders to erect a fence and foundation before this devastating Land Information dropped on his laps. So we are looking at an extra N3Million here if we add the above costs for the fence. I wish i knew what to tell him and all this could have been avoided.

Chai just learnt a lot.
But 50k is not that much to verify a land worth 5 million its just 1 percent of 5 million.
5 million truly down the drain

Buying a land is always problematic due to the 'dubious' nature of most land sellers! It is good to a good research before one buys a land or anything at all but in most cases there may be asymmetry of information in which case one has a limited information and may not be able to verify certain things about the land before signing the contract.

[color=#990000][/color]. Hmmmmmmmm

You only deal with lands located in lagos??

No be small wahala my brother

lawyer: He bought a COMMITTED LAND that had been allocated to a PRIVATE ESTATE to develop their own RESIDENTIAL ESTATE.

For those that are unaware of what a Committed Land is, i will give you a brief lesson on it. Lands for sale are either free from Government acquisition, Under Acquisition or Committed Lands.

A LAND FREE FROM ACQUISITION is a very safe land to buy because the Government has not acquired it and has no plans to acquire it in future to do a project. If by para venture the Government acquires it, you will be paid compensation because it was taken from you unannounced and they have already given you the go ahead to buy it and build on it.

A LAND UNDER ACQUISITION IS PART BAD AND PART GOOD. Part bad because the Government has acquired the land for a future Use but due to SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES, it might in its infinite wisdom decide to give the Land back to the community but in return you are going to be sanctioned heavily for buying A LAND UNDER ACQUISITION by paying a lot of money to the government to RATIFY OR REGULARIZE THAT LAND before you can get documents to that land.

A COMMITTED LAND IS A BAD LAND. No stories and nothing can change what is coming or passing through that land. A Bridge or Estate or Airport or a project deemed worthy by the Government must take place on that land and no amount of bribery, coercion, pleading, settlement or crying will change the fact that the building on it won't be demolished.

The Omoniles, sellers, agents and surveyor had all hoodwinked him into buying a land that was Fully committed. He told me that they said the land was about to get a Gazette and It was under processing and he was shown some papers to prove it. Little did he know that he was buying an extremely defective land. The survey plan he was shown at first that was owned by the Seller was drawn up in such a fraudulent way that it showed it was "free from acquisition" on the survey plan and the new surveyor he hired just reproduced, copied and pasted the old survey plan of the seller and gave to the client not knowing it was a land belonging to a PRIVATE ESTATE who have been fighting the Baale of that community and Omoniles for selling their estate lands stupidly and Alausa was ready to fight for them too. The Land Bureau at Alausa have resolved to demolish all the houses, fences, foundations and any other structure found in that committed area and the Millions or billions of Naira used to buy these lands or build those houses have been turned into waste.

Now he is asking me what he should do and he would pay anything for me to get him out of this quagmire. So my people what is the way forward because to me his N5Million is gone, The Omoniles cannot be found after they have spent his money to buy Sallah Rams and marry new wives, The lawyer that drafted the agreement is speaking in tongues, The Agent is not picking his calls, The Seller has traveled to Dubai, Surveyor is saying he wasn’t contracted to take coordinates etc. Please help me advise Mr One chance. Besides the Land in question is at Ibeju-Lekki, so those that have lands there that do not know the status of their Land or took a big gamble to buy lands before investigating it, be very afraid because deep down I even thought the area this man bought was not committed. ( I purposely deleted the name of the client, surveyor and Area so as not to rouse suspicion). So don't throw away your life savings and your children's future by dashing Omoniles or fraudulent land sellers your hard earned money. Do a land verification to give you peace of mind unless an unplanned demolition may happen to your beautiful house in future.

LEARN MORE WAYS ON HOW TO BUY HASSLE FREE LANDS OR WANT TO SAVE YOUR EXISTING LANDS FROM DEMOLITION by Visiting www.omonilelawyer.com. You will be glad you did.

i like this.

The issues that Lawyer is raising on the perils of buying COMMITTED LAND are indeed very timely.

In fact it is better to spend all that money in a night club than to take your hard earned money to buy committed land, build on it and then have it demolished.

Many people do not know the implications of the Land Use Act which rests authority of ALL land in Nigeria and its contents with the President and his assistants in the various states (the Governors). People never believed that Lagos Badagry road will be expanded and all structures beside it demolished until it began to play out before their very eyes.

Finally, I was taught in Economics that division of labour necessitates exchange. No human being is created with the power to do it all. Therefore, those elements of existence that are outside one's area of specialization should be left to the experts. Why spend N10 million a plot, more millions on construction and then lose it all when N50,000 could have saved the day?

PENNY WISE, POUND VERY FOOLISH!

Layer well done & make una do well

@op nice

I feel for him but is possible the person that sold the land to him might not be aware that the land is a committed land. Because before land become commited, government uses her power of overriding interest which means after takeover the land that particular use will be effected on the entire layout. So therefore, let him meet with d seller, he could refund his money to him or secondly approach the government for compensention if she refuse, approach town planning tribunal, the governement will compensate him with another land. That is if the allocation is confirm genuine

Marpol: 5Million down the drain! Is there anyway he can recover at least something?

I have an uncle who also does land verification and he is actually friends with the Surveyor-General of Lagos state, who is a very straightforward man and is very categorical about purchasing committed land:

NO AMOUNT OF BRIBERY OR FRIENDSHIP WILL SAVE ANY COMMITTED LAND AND ANY STRUCTURES ON THEM.

This is one case of look well before you leap. If you leap, it will be too late to do anything. So N5million is gone and gone forever.

Casted!

hmmmmmmm

Noted

Cool....noted!!!!

Reserved till after dinner.

Only if he knew,look at what his sturbbornes has landed him into,How i wish "LAWYER"cud turn back the hands of time.

Paroman:
i like this.

Y quote de whole tin only u nah fool