Obtaining Governors consent from the Land Bureau is not the simplest thing to get a hold of despite the importance attached to it. On the Lagos state website, it is stated that a Governors Consent can be obtained within 30 days but in our experience that has been nearly impossible even though the Government is trying all it can to meet up with this expectation.

A Governor’s consent that naturally should be concluded within 30 days could translate to 6-months or a Year to perfect based on the strength of the agency/consultant handling the job.

The requirement of Governor’s consent is critical and of great importance to mortgage transaction .In SAVANNAH BANK V. AJILO (1989)1 NWLR Pt97 Pg 305, the respondent mortgaged his land which he acquired before the Land use act to secure a loan. Being a legal mortgage, the appellant who is the mortgagee decide to exercise his statutory power of sale when the mortgagor/respondent refuses to pay the loan. The respondents commence an action to stop the sale of the mortgaged property on the ground that the Governor’s consent was not obtained. The Supreme Court held that for both actual grant and deems grant the consent of the Governor is needed and failure to obtain such consent renders the mortgage void (that is not enforceable by the court).

ADVANTAGES OF OBTAINING GOVERNORS’ CONSENT
1. Evidence of Ownership
2. Higher Property Value
3. Security of Title
4. Ease of Transaction.

THE FEATURES OF GOVERNORS CONSENT MUST CONTAIN THE FOLLOWING

1. The Form 1c; which must be signed by the purchaser and vendor that has either a Gazette or Global C of O or in the case of an Individual that has a private C of O granted to him by the Governor.
2. A covering application letter by the Agent or by the Attorney to the Applicant filing the application for Governor’s consent. Contained in the letter must also be the address, telephone numbers, mobile numbers and where possible an email address of the Applicant.
3. A certified original copy of the Title document of the property.
4. Four copies of a Deed of Assignment prepared by the buyer's Solicitor who must include signatures of the parties to the transaction, the cost of the land/property, size of the land description of the land, the copy of the survey attached to it and signature of witnesses to the transaction.
5. Photographs’ of the property.
6. Three passport photographs of the Assignee on white background attached to the front page of each copy of the deed.
7. Current tax clearance certificate of the parties involved in the property transaction. Please note that if you do not have one, an assessment is raised immediately in that regard.
8. The Consent will be heavily stamped from the beginning to the end and upon completion and payment of the requisite fees, the Governor or his representatives such as the Commissioners will sign and date the Consent and stamp it with their official Seal.
9. The land bureau after that will assign a Consent number to that document for reference purpose for life and it’s with this Consent number that the documents will be registered and recorded in their archives for future references.

All these documents are forwarded to the office of the Surveyor General for charting. If there are no defects in the survey plan, a clean report is sent to the Lands Bureau and a demand notice is issued to the applicant for the following fees which are percentages of the assessed value of the property. These fees are paid via bank draft in the name of Lagos State Government and receipts are issued.

 Consent fees – 8%
 Capital gains tax – 2%
 Stamp duty fee – 2%
 Registration fee – 3%

From experience it takes three months to conclude a Governors’ consent from the point of payment of the assessment.
Although the State Government has a 30days Approval project which was launched in the early part of the ACN government in Lagos, however what applies in practice is simply a case of “WHAT THE LAW IS AND WHAT THE LAW OUGHT TO BE”

Consent fees now 8% ?!