There are so many Real Estate companies in Nigeria more especially in Popular cities in Nigeria offering Nigerians the opportunity to own homes through installment payment to help an average Nigerian balance his budget monthly and still have that desire to own their own lands or homes. While i appreciate their efforts to promote this laudable idea of providing affordable housing, i am also appalled with the level of scams, lack of information and deceitfulness that most of these real estate developers practice to hood wink people into paying huge monthly monetary installments without performing their own part of the bargain when the chips are down. Every day i get one phone call, email or the other asking me to verify these lands offered up for sale by these companies and whenever i venture out to engage a surgical due diligence on them, i am shocked at their responses and what they intend to offer to .

Most Nigerians just fall for their beautiful marketing strategies to buy these lands without questioning the source of their title and what they are to get in return. You hear marketers on behalf of these estates promoting the benefits of a new estate that is close to a proposed international airport or free trade zone and that the futuristic estate would have good roads, hospitals, schools, boreholes etc that would generally make you believe that you might be purchasing a future Lekki phase One with just a minimum of N25,000 monthly for 2 to 3 years but what they fail to tell you how it can be realised and the likely authentic documents they possess to make it materialize and feasible.

With this in mind, i am calling out all the real estate developers in Nigeria to change their ways and be accountable to the buyer/subscriber. We are in a season of change and we shouldn’t wait for politicians to change when the real transgressions are right in front of us. Every existing installment payment Land or property buyer with a real estate company or potential future subscriber whether in Lagos or Ogun, Portharcourt or Abuja should ask the Real Estate Companies these series of questions before you pay the next dime to them. They owe you this much since they are collecting your funds:

1. Every Subscriber must ask the Real estate Company to show you proof how they obtained the authority to market these lands to you. They must show you how they purchased it, what documents were given to them as proof, who sold it to them, how many acres or hectares of land they bought, How they derived title to sell to you and which ones are can be confirmed at the land registry of your state.

Most of these Real estate companies are fond of pushing beautiful marketers in your face to tell you all the attractive things about this estate but when you grill them with some of the questions i highlighted above, they begin to squeeze their faces like my towel as if you are offending their intelligence. They would then refer you to the legal secretary or the M.D of the company and unsavory stories would begin to emanate in a very hostile way. What is so hard in sighting physically the documents the real estate company is claiming to be its source of authority to sell to you? Would you buy a car from a car sales man and not inspect the proof of ownership before you buy it? Sometimes you would hear very odd excuse such as “We are not allowed to show anybody these documents so that fraudulent people won't reproduce it"…What a load of Codswallop!!! That shouldn’t be the subscribers business. If they want your money, you should show you their proof of title and those who sold it to them so that you can investigate it.

The hazard of not asking this important question is that you might be buying a plot of land that has existing family land wahala, court cases, lands under acquisition that could be revoked anytime or buying a land that belongs to another group of people and you would be liable for any potential judgment against the real estate company to pay millions of Naira to the true owner in future. Don’t let the stubbornness of the Estate marketer prevent you from doing the needful. If they fail to furnish you with these information’s, please either you cancel your subscription with them if you are an existing subscriber or you don’t do business with them if you are a new potential buyer.

2. Every Subscriber must know and demand in advance the Contract of Sale the real estate developer intends to give you: A general misconception with most of these Real estate developers is that it is when you finishing paying their installment fees, you would be given the contract of sale between you and their company. This is very wrong in principle. Why should a contract of sale be one sided without the subscriber knowing what he has paid for and the contents of what he or she might be signing in advance. This job has been designated to the beautiful marketers to elucidate the Contract of Sale for you in very beautiful terms and to assure you there is no problem after you pay but i have seen so many hidden and dangerous clauses inserted in the Contract of Sale that would not favor any potential subscriber once they know about the contents.

They restrict you from so many things that you should normally get for free if you were buying a private land, charge you very high hidden service charges for so many mundane things, Bill you for this future development and that development levies, restrict you from owning this or doing that, force you into using their staffs, workers and allied partners before you can do anything, deduct monthly or yearly fees so odd things and so on. It’s crazy when you sit down to read these contract of sale and after you have paid and realize your mistake, you feel much cheated but you can’t do anything about it because you have signed your future away legally.

A classic example of this problem can be seen in the refund clause of these contracts of sale. Since no real estate company wants you to stop payment, they refuse to explain to you or allow you read the penalties for stopping payment. A popular real estate company in Lagos that has its adverts splashed everywhere has one of these hidden refund clauses that would make you go bonkers and run away from them once you default in payment. They charge over 10% of the amount already paid and you would receive that money 3-6 months after depending on the availability of funds in their coffers. So it’s even possible for you to wait for more than 2 years before you even receive your money back depending on the availability of funds and you can’t do anything about it because you refused to scrutinize a copy of their contract of sale before you began to make payment. To make matters worse, if they encounter any problem, judgment, liquidation issues, raising of new capital issues etc your money and imaginary land is gone and its all legal because you refused to ask for the Contract of Sale to negotiate it according to your own terms.

3. Final Documents, Ownership and Possession: The ultimate scam most of these real estate developers pull can be traced to this part. After payment has been made, you are entitled to get a letter of allocation, deed of assignment, survey plan and your receipt. You also entitled to know exactly where your plot of land is located on the layout and for you to take immediate possession but i know there are Millions of you out there that can testify that you have been very serious victims of this foul play by some dubious real estate developers. They would give you a thousand and one stories why you cannot be allocated your land immediately, they would give you stories why the agreed price that should be paid for your legal documents has changed and why you should pay a higher fee, they would give you stories why your survey plan would take more than One month for it to be ready when an average survey plan shouldn’t take less than a week. They would give you stories why your deed of assignment is taking forever to be ready and most importantly, you would know you have a land on paper but in real life you can neither locate the land nor take possession of that land.

The way out of this is to make sure that you do a personal site visit before you attempt to give them a dime of your money. You should know the personal plot and block number they intend to sell to you and it must be documented in the Contract of sale and to hold them liable if they renegade or attempt to change it. You should get a real estate lawyer from the moment you intend to start paying to peruse a sample Contract of Sale or Deed of Assignment and the lawyer should be the one disturbing them every day for these documents so that they know you are protected legally and they won't see you as one of the naive Ones that they can deceive. You must pressurize them for the survey plan and the moment you make full payment, you must obtain your receipt immediately.

With respect to taking possession, you must slug it out with them. Maximum 2weeks after payment you must be shown your land and you must take possession. Anything beyond 2 weeks without any concrete and reasonable explanation that makes sense must lead to a show of force and to cause maximum problem with them because they have your money tied down with nothing to show. Do not give them any breathing space and don’t be friendly with them. It’s a business to collect your money and it’s your business to obtain your land. They are not your family members, partners or friends and you shouldn’t treat them as one. Most of the problems i have seen emanating from Real estate developers and subscribers could be traced to the friendly way these transactions were consummated at the beginning. In exchange for the smiling and humble face, you’re first in line to be treated badly when the chips are down. Those they perceive that would ferment Boko Haram Wahala with them would be treated with dignity and attended to first.


These are some of the Changes we expect this new democratic dispensation from Real Estate Developers towards their Subscribers. It’s time to stop these sharp practice of getting rich quick with other people’s funds and savings. Most of you have no idea what these People go through when they spend years to pay these installment fees with their last garri Naira and adhere to it strictly so that they can become landlords only for these Real estate companies to erect stumbling blocks along the way or dash their hopes by not allocating them these lands or furnishing them with good title. Its wickedness and it should stop. As much as you want to make profit you should bear in mind the blood and sweat of these Buyers praying day and night for your companies to fulfill your own part of the agreement. The more you tell buyers the truth and open up your documents, the more they trust you, would do business with you and take that risk if any knowing that you have their best interest at heart.

Please Change or we expose you and flush you out the system and you would still pay damages for your misrepresentations.


If you have any experience with any bad or dubious real estate company that is playing games with people's money or depriving them of their landed properties please expose them here. Most of them are heavily represented on Nairaland and if calling them out for the whole world to see would make them change so be it. For the more complex ones I would take my time to investigate them and bring them to book. This nonsense must stop. We can't continue like this and blame politicians for all our woes when we are duping innocent Nigerians left right and centre.

An educative eye opener like this deserves front page

I agree with u @gbafched if na tonto mess na front page you go first see am before him go show for the normal section

@ Lawyer, this is a very apt thread. I will give my own personal experience and will call names because i do not pull my punches.

I tried to invest in Lekki Gardens Phase 2. They were dodgy about releasing information and gave out false info as well. I remember Gladys saying that each house will have inverters, the estate will have a town hall meeting in which they will choose their own service charge and electricity charge, each house will be provided with a carport, etc. I asked for a contract that states all of these which they didn't have. I asked to see the documents of the land, they kept telling me long stories. Can they start building if they do not have title? Will they swindle me and run away with the houses? They can only show me after i have paid up fully and other such thrash. Also, they don't have building approval so could not get a mortgage. After 2 months of back and forth, i let go. This was before they started building Phase 2.

After a couple of years, they had built up and really expanded and we were interested again. By this time, the areas available in Ajah were either Phase 4 or Phase 3 extension. After seeing the layout, we decided on Phase 3 extension because of the access road and how easy it would be to access the express. It was meant to be directly behind Phase 3. They showed us the documents which were that they had a court case that had been settled by the families. Gave us an upfront contract (although they said the proper sale contract would be after full payment, i have forgotten what they called this initial contract). We paid the deposit and started the wait game.

After 3 months, we went there and noticed that the access road beside phase 3 had been fenced off by the people beside. That day we went, we saw army and navy fighting over one side of the land (the unfenced part) where the estate should be. We started disturbing LG to show us where the phase 3 extension will be. Today they will say it is on the right, another day it is on the left. They said the access road will be through Phase 3 or phase 4. We did a search of the documents and realised that LG lost the land they bought and they had to re-buy it from the original owners which they had not done. We started bombarding their office for our money back. They wanted to give us phase 4 which was already being built but we insisted on getting our money back. That was when they mentioned that in the final contract, refunds will be less 10% of the money paid and they will refund after 3 months. That was a very long 3 months. We went there with my cousin, a lawyer to fake a law suit if they should deduct any money as we didn't enter into that contract (it was meant to be done after full payment) neither are we defaulting. They were the ones that defaulted.

They finally gave us our full money after 4 months and i have steered clear of LG and any other estate property since then.

Alrite

xammy:
I agree with u @gbafched if na tonto mess na front page you go first see am before him go show for the normal section

funny dude

scammers

[quote author=blank post=33192392]@ Lawyer, this is a very apt thread. I will give my own personal experience and will call names because i do not pull my punches.

I tried to invest in Lekki Gardens Phase 2. They were dodgy about releasing information and gave out false info as well. I remember Gladys saying that each house will have inverters, the estate will have a town hall meeting in which they will choose their own service charge and electricity charge, each house will be provided with a carport, etc. I asked for a contract that states all of these which they didn't have. I asked to see the documents of the land, they kept telling me long stories. Can they start building if they do not have title? Will they swindle me and run away with the houses? They can only show me after i have paid up fully and other such thrash. Also, they don't have building plans so could not get a mortgage. After 2 months of back and forth, i let go. This was before they started building Phase 2.

After a couple of years, they had built up and really expanded and we were interested again. By this time, the areas available in Ajah were either Phase 4 or Phase 3 extension. After seeing the layout, we decided on Phase 3 extension because of the access road and how easy it would be to access the express. It was meant to be directly behind Phase 3. They showed us the documents which were that they had a court case that had been settled by the families. Gave us an upfront contract (although they said the proper sale contract would be after full payment, i have forgotten what they called this initial contract). We paid the deposit and started the wait game.

After 3 months, we went there and noticed that the access road beside phase 3 had been fenced off by the people beside. That day we went, we saw army and navy fighting over one side of the land (the unfenced part) where the estate should be. We started disturbing LG to show us where the phase 3 extension will be. Today they will say it is on the right, another day it is on the left. They said the access road will be through Phase 3 or phase 4. We did a search of the documents and realised that LG lost the land they bought and they had to re-buy it from the original owners which they had not done. We started bombarding their office for our money back. They wanted to give us phase 4 which was already being built but we insisted on getting our money back. That was when they mentioned that in the final contract, refunds will be 10% of the money paid and they will refund after 3 months. That was a very long 3 months. We went there with my cousin, a lawyer to fake a law suit if they should deduct any money as we didn't enter into that contract (it was meant to be done after full payment) neither are we defaulting. They were the ones that defaulted.

They finally gave us our full money after 4 months and i have steered clear of LG and any other estate property since then.

Almost got into one few years ago , now imagine if u don't live in the country and u have paid , to get that money back u go suffer ehnhhn
I won't mention the name of the real estate company , it was latter I found out that they collect money from buyers and build for the another buyers that had deposited with them months/ years before you , so you will have to wait and pray for some to pay them before they can start yours .. and you will latter start seeing hidden fees coming up and low standard houses

NAWA O, SAW ONE YDAE, IBEJU LEKKI, 57K FOR 60 MONTHS

Ọ bụghị Ọbere Ihe Oooh.....

Nothing surprises me in Nigeria because scam in real estate and other business ventures are daily occurrences. It happened to me once but I won't fall a victim anymore. Nigeria is a place where you have to open your eyes wide and get all your antennas clicking.

blank:
@ Lawyer, this is a very apt thread. I will give my own personal experience and will call names because i do not pull my punches.

I tried to invest in Lekki Gardens Phase 2. They were dodgy about releasing information and gave out false info as well. I remember Gladys saying that each house will have inverters, the estate will have a town hall meeting in which they will choose their own service charge and electricity charge, each house will be provided with a carport, etc. I asked for a contract that states all of these which they didn't have. I asked to see the documents of the land, they kept telling me long stories. Can they start building if they do not have title? Will they swindle me and run away with the houses? They can only show me after i have paid up fully and other such thrash. Also, they don't have building plans so could not get a mortgage. After 2 months of back and forth, i let go. This was before they started building Phase 2.

After a couple of years, they had built up and really expanded and we were interested again. By this time, the areas available in Ajah were either Phase 4 or Phase 3 extension. After seeing the layout, we decided on Phase 3 extension because of the access road and how easy it would be to access the express. It was meant to be directly behind Phase 3. They showed us the documents which were that they had a court case that had been settled by the families. Gave us an upfront contract (although they said the proper sale contract would be after full payment, i have forgotten what they called this initial contract). We paid the deposit and started the wait game.

After 3 months, we went there and noticed that the access road beside phase 3 had been fenced off by the people beside. That day we went, we saw army and navy fighting over one side of the land (the unfenced part) where the estate should be. We started disturbing LG to show us where the phase 3 extension will be. Today they will say it is on the right, another day it is on the left. They said the access road will be through Phase 3 or phase 4. We did a search of the documents and realised that LG lost the land they bought and they had to re-buy it from the original owners which they had not done. We started bombarding their office for our money back. They wanted to give us phase 4 which was already being built but we insisted on getting our money back. That was when they mentioned that in the final contract, refunds will be 10% of the money paid and they will refund after 3 months. That was a very long 3 months. We went there with my cousin, a lawyer to fake a law suit if they should deduct any money as we didn't enter into that contract (it was meant to be done after full payment) neither are we defaulting. They were the ones that defaulted.

They finally gave us our full money after 4 months and i have steered clear of LG and any other estate property since then.

Damn!
I am currently in discussion with LG for one of their new developments.
Your experience has given me ample points to push on our next meeting.
Thanks a lot for sharing this.

that's why i'm putting this plot up for sale...with original copy of C of O..

I am a victim of such Scam at the moment. These Estate firm have held my money for 2years now and everyday they keep claiming that they are clearing the land as its massive acres of land...The problem is these ones came to steal under the guise of religion....its a shame

I need this. Thanks op.

My experience is with Cross and Churchill real estates. I decided to subscribe to one of their properties in 2012 to take advantage of the massive return in real estate. However, this dream of mine was short lived when I was no longer interested in the plan again due to misrepresentation of info by the developer and the distance involved. This made me to pull out of the scheme and request for my money back in Feb 2014. When I approached them they kept telling stories and giving excuses which are all in a way to either defer or deny me my money.

When I mounted pressure on them I was paid part of my contribution in May (without any agreement that refund will take this long).