So because of these problems land owners who bought lands illegally from The Dreaded Omoniles under Government Acquisition, the Lagos state Government decided to take an Inventory of all unlawful structures erected in areas under Government acquisition and endorsed a decision that all prohibited structures erected on Land under Government acquisition which were not blocking roads, drainage and not located in Committed Areas should have the opportunity to process their papers and be granted building plan approvals and also assist the Government to provide for more housing developments for low income earners. This decision of approving the processing of getting their papers in Lands under Government acquisition gave birth to the process of Ratification and Regularization of owning lands within Non committed Government Acquisition.

Today it is now known as Regularization officially at Alausa instead of Ratification and Regularization is a process whereby illegal owners of lands in places Under Government acquisition that are not Committed lands are given the opportunity to obtain a legal title to the land encroached or trespassed upon from the State Government.

Also it is pertinent here to explain two concepts that affect the issue of Ratification or Regularization before I move on And it has to do with the differences between Owning Lands Under Government Acquisition and Committed Lands .

A Land under Government acquisition is a land acquired by the Government for its own specific use and there are plans for these lands in the nearest future depending on what the Government intends to do with the land. These lands have been acquired for years by the government and its at the Government’s discretion to release those lands to people or not depending on if they need to use the lands for a specific purpose or not and if the release of those acquired lands to the people will not disrupt any regional or urban planning regulation and the Government can cover eye to that Land.

Meanwhile A Committed Land is a land the Government already has Plans for and nothing in this life will make the Government alter its mind to give up that land. Such lands include lands earmarked for Government estates, Roads, Government Schemes etc. In fact if you buy a land in a committed Area, Your on your own because they will never approve the papers and if you build a property there, it will most certainly be demolished.

Please this Article is not for Nairaland Children to mess around with and write rubbish. If you have nothing intelligent to say or write please kindly walk away. Its a very serious Article for people that have been searching for how to perfect their papers that have been having problems with Bad lands bought from Omonile and dont know what to do.

Good day Nairalanders and Quite a while since my last article. Well I have got Good News and a very interesting article that affects so many owners of Lands in Lagos and it has to do with Ratification or Regularization of BAD land in Lagos , Popularly Referred to as ‘RAT or RATI’.

To be honest this is the most difficult topic I am attempting to write because information about Ratification is so Scanty and the procedure to go about it is very Sketchy, but I have been researching on this issue for more than 3 Years before I could muster something to scribble for you.

First thing you should know is that Omoniles have contributed terribly to the sales of very very bad lands to unsuspecting buyers that did not do any proper search before they bought their lands and because the lands are defective from the start it will be difficult to process your papers at Alausa because they are illegal lands that shouldn’t be bought and the Government has every right to come and demolish any structure they find on the land.

Examples of Bad lands people purchased from Omoniles include lands under Government Acquisitions, Lands Government intend to build estates, drainages, roads, Government Schemes, pipelines, high tensions, bad layouts and general lands or property that do not conform with the Lagos State Urban and Regional Planning Regulations .

Because of the sale of these bad lands, it has been very very difficult for the purchasers of this lands to Get even a simple Survey Plan approved or lodged at the Surveyor General’s office, talkless of owning a Certificate of Occupancy ( C/O) or an Approved Building Plan Or the Right to claim proper Ownership of the Land legally and they live in constant fear everyday of an impending Demolition or Revocation.

Thanks blank i appreciate. They will be banned accordingly!

Cheers

.

Am looking for 2 Real Estate Agents who have the flair for real estate and would love to do search related duties. Work time is very flexible and very attractive renumerations. Only criteria, you must be as Honest and Hardworking as me. Ability to spot out scammers and good investigative 6th sense is an added bonus.

Am looking for 2 Agents that stay in the Ajah Environs and 1 That stays on the mainland for easy access to where you live. An experience in the real estate world would be an added bonus.

Send your cv to barristermatto@yahoo.com

Cheers

Most People abroad i know that have plans coming home sent money to their relatives to assist them to buy a land or purchase something for them to aid their easy transistion back home but when they came back they found out that the monies they were sending were used for other things so the said land or building has not being properly accounted for or exists so they are stuck because they have been duped by their ow people.

Second reason is that those that bought lands will not move into the house until they have monitored the design structure and how it should be built to their own taste so its normal for them to rent an apartment for between 2-3 years until they can move into their own homes.

So i dont see anything wrong in people relocating back home to stay in a rented place as long as the ultimate aim is to prepare to move to your own own someday!

Cheers

.

Secretary Vacancy for a law office in Ikeja. Must be very computer literate, very good typing skills,Good command of English, Excellent with Documents and letters draftings, courteous, smart and have a flair for managing situations and not one to be Micro-managed.

I am purposely not asking for any form of academic qualification because i have realised academic qualifications does'nt equate to Practical experience and i am throwing it open but previous experience as Secretary would be an added advantage .

Candidates must live within the ikeja environs or close by for accessibility to and fro the office and must be 18-25, Female, hardworking and God-fearing.

Send CV in a form of a letter to barristermatto@yahoo.com on or before the 25th of May 2012.

Renumerations attractive

P;S: Your resume will determine how good you are with document draftings Unsupervised and am not interested in your academic qualifications, rather your proficiency with computing skills and written English.

Cheers

Am a TNA impact fan! Its more realistic, bloodier and straight to the point hardcore wrestling compared to WWE. The only time you enjoy WWE is during their payper view events but the weekly smackdown or raw matches are quite a bore, unrealistic and too planned. Apart from Randy Orton, Mark Henry and Cody Rhodes who show elements of seriousness in their matches, the rest are just circus clowns! Koffi Kingston, Santino, Miz, R truth etc! Mscheew!

But TNA impact is the real deal! Makes you remember the wrestling of old in the 80's and early 90s! Samoa Joe, Bobby Roode, Austin Aries, Kurt Angle etc! These guys give you a run for your money and make every experience of watching Wrestling a worthwhile! Although they are beginning to spoil it with Hulk Hogan coming over to introduce WWE stupid fake entertainment style to increase ratings but it will never degenerate to their level!

P:S. I watched the Undertaker Triple H end of an era match, In all my years watching wrestling I have never seen a match that I had to doff my hat for the Undertaker! Despite 1 year absence, he was fitter, more agile, more brutal and tactically aware at his age to beat Triple H to pulp! Even if that match was planned, I would pay money to re-watch it again! Reminded me of the old Dusty Rhodes V Ric flair cage match in the 80s!

victor2exl: Dear Lawyer,
goodmorning to you...for the past 1 month plus,my property posts havent been appearing on the display wall..i dont know what i did wrong,please kindly explain to me and give me the guide lines on how to avoid such defaulting again,Thank you very much...Below are my details.

USERNAME:victor2exl
EMAIL:victor2exl@yahoo.co.uk
Tel:08060272288/08176070712

Ok we would work on it. Its the spam bot not me or any other person preventing it from showing.

Cheers

blank: @ Lawyer, i have a question. Is it the fault of the surveyor if it is not free from govt acquisition? I am a bit confused. Are they meant to check if it is unencumbered before doing the survey plan or after?

Thanks.

@ blank

Thanks for your question. Naturally the first step before you buy a land is to get a surveyor to go to the site to take the coordinates of the land and revert back to the surveyor general's office to check whether it is free from Government acquisition. It is based on that advice that the lawyer investigates further before he advices the buyer to purchase the land.

Once the surveyor from the beginning checks the coordinates and confirms the land is not free and its under Govt acquisition, immediately it becomes advisable to forget that land and look for another one that is free for the buyer to purchase because of the attendant implications.

But the problem is that the quack surveyor knowing is not free, still endorses the land as free and ends up doing the survey plan and stamping it as free whereas the end is not free. It becomes a big problem to rectify the error in future both financially and mentally. Thats why a good surveyor is the key to buying a good property from the onset to aid the lawyer/ buyer in making the right decision to buy the land.

So to answer your question, if the land is not free and the surveyor says its free, its his fault 100% for misleading the buyer and should be held accountable. Although i have to confess that sometimes due to mechanical error such as wrong positioning of the gps or wrong setting on the gps could give conflicting reports or when there are 2 or more master plans and each one giving its own separate coordinates, then you dont blame the Surveyor. It just happened especially if he is one with a track record of due diligence. We are all humans so it can happen once in a while and he must attempt to rectify it within his capacity to do so!

Cheers

@WerepeLeri

Poster. - There is no battle to fight. Your use of words in the article says it all - you have a grouse with Surveyors, Quack, Fake or Registered. You portrayed Surveyors - Fake, Quack or Registered - you portrayed them all as scammers.

Please grow up And change your contact Lens. The title says it all. Fraudulent Land surveyors! Emphasis on 'Fraudulent'. My best friend is a land surveyor. My closest Land Adviser is a Land surveyor and they all read these article before i posted it. How come none of them are complaining or the thousands of surveyors on nairaland reading this article silently. So if you write an article on Fraudulent Lawyers i should be angry that you have abused all lawyers When i know am not fraudulent? smh*

So if a Surveyor comes to you - or you go to one- you will be asking him for his credentials? That's what you want your readers to do - is that how people ask for your credentials before they engage you in your legal practice? Yes, there are Quack Surveyors, the profession knows about them, but then, how do you define a quack? Because he hasnt stepped a University? So he is a scammer because he is not registered? Or because he is an OND/HND graduate who is not registered yet - automatically, by your "expose" - you should not deal with him? LOL

Simple answer. YES! Any time i get a call from a Nairalander the first time, the first question i am asked is' ( Are you a real Lawyer? and i answer yes and next question, do you have an office? and where is it? i tell them the address and they ask, can they book a meeting with me? i say yes they are free). Some ask me when i graduated from law school, i tell them and some ask for my certificates i send it to them and its hanging in my office or my wallet so that they can cross check at the Supreme court book of rolls or the local NBA branch. There is nothing to hide.

So i ask you the same question. You claim to be a surveyor! Can you state your credentials and why we should take you serious as one or why we should even remotely listen or read any advise you give us here?

Also what makes a Surveyor a Land scammer is when he does something fraudulent to deprive a property owner from enjoying his property properly due to certain errors and omissions that he should be quite aware would cause distress to a client and not do anything to rectify it and most of the top ten reasons i put there are done by QUACK surveyors and i can point to a few i know personally.I pointed out to Nairalanders that they should deal more with Registered Surveyors who are members of SURCON Because they are more experienced and they have a regulatory body that can sanction erring members.

What liability does a OND/HND Surveyor have when he has committed a blunder that has cost the buyer over a 1Million naira? Please once again grow up with your criticisms and read the article properly before you make assumptions.

If a Surveyor is resides in Lagos and has an office in Ogun - it is allowed, if "quacks" do the work in Ogun and take to him to sign - there is nothing wrong with that.

If i was taking you seriously before, i think after this statement you must be on a very wonderful quality of Crack and you have proven to be A PROMOTER OF QUACKS IN THE SURVEYING PROFESSION AND SURCON SHOULD TRACE YOU OUT AND DEAL WITH YOU ETHICALLY

The number 1 scam by these quack surveyors is running around doing sketches and taking it to registered Surveyors who would not do any search on the property they have just surveyed and sign on it.A proper responsible Registered surveyor will do due diligence, investigate the coordinates properly before appendixing his signature or stamp to that Survey plan brought by either his colleague or a Quack. Do you know the number of surveyors that i have fought with over this nonsense?

Why would a registered surveyor just collect a Survey plan and appendix his signature to something he doesnt know about. Does that sound right to you? Do you think another lawyer can just bring over a document that i should attest to without me knowing the content? Isnt that grossly irresponsible and ethically wrong? I have scores of survey plans signed by 2 Registered surveyors named witheld in the Ajah environs and all these lands fall under the proposed coastal road that they signed and stamped as 'FREE FROM GOVERNMENT ACQUISITION' and town planning have been marking their houses for demolition.

When the yawa gassed were they not begging that it would lead to their suspension, financial ruin and legal problems. Only if they had checked the coordinates properly before they signed these survey plans brought to them by these Quacks. Instead of you to condemn this rubbish, your here encouraging it. Please dont even say any thing anymore to further dent your image and annoying Nairalanders. How can you come here to endorse such rubbish? I dont suffer fools gladly or fraudsters and for you to endorse that, maybe your the Quack i am telling the whole world to avoid. Do you know how much i lost personally because of that and how the lands became a big problem on my neck because i couldnt get a consent or approved building plan? *smh*

What is the meaning of the statement below?

""""most of them have the software of Coordinates of the whole Lagos on their computers and they do the mapping there, they will just compare the coordinates with the ones on their system and forget that since it’s a software, its being upgraded everyday. """" I never know Softwares get upgraded "daily"

For those who has the brain enough to think - NOT EVERY "QUACK" SURVEYOR OUT THERE IS OUT TO SCAM YOU. NOT EVERY SO CALLED QUACK SURVEYOR HAS THE CHARACTERISTICS AS DESCRIBED.

FYI Everyday new excisions are granted to communities every day and Gazettes published and such excisions must be reflected in the master plan and when Surveyors chart the coordinates in their office, they also have to double check at the Surveyor General's office to make sure they are in tandem. So the softwares am talking about is the ones Surveyors have on their computer where they can chart it directly.

I dont know why am arguing with this ****. I have promised not to engage in any online battle with any one no matter how hard am pushed but For that silly statement you made i have lost any iota of respect i have for you and you can continue encouraging such malfeasance until SURCON and or the law catches up with you! Finally if you had any brains at all and you check the coordinates of the survey plans if truely your a surveyor that i said are defective you will find out that those lands are either under Government acquisition or committed.

And for you to say NOT EVERY "QUACK" SURVEYOR OUT THERE IS OUT TO SCAM YOU Shows your a confirmed Quack! Is a Quack not a scammer trying to pretend what he is not to con people to think he or she is an expert in that chosen field? How can you come to Nairaland to endorse such rubbish when we are fighting to get raid of such people or denounce such statements? In fact i would advise every Nairalander to take your statements with a pinch of salt and beware of you because of your endorsement of quacks and your probably one because only a quack will recognize another quack!

Please your advised to govern yourself accordingly or disappear into the night quietly unless with the permission of the administrator of Nairaland you will be sanctioned because we dont want your type here. Constructive criticisms are allowed but Scammers, Quacks and their endorsers are not encouraged on Nairaland property Forums!

It is a shame that you speak so deceitfully about a profession that is one of the oldest in Nigeria - every profession has bad people - if I research into you properly, I am sure I will find out you are a rubbish lawyer as well.

@Werepeleri

I didnt even see that part! HAAAA! Now i know this is personal! Lol@ Rubbish Lawyer!

I wont fight this battle with you, i will leave you in the hands of the ones who think am not a rubbish lawyer and see you as the next surveyor general of the federation!!! Loool!

werepeLeri: I am a Surveyor and I must tell you all you have written above is gibberish. Most of the atrocities you have tried to highlight above are actually carried out by fake lawyers who have turned from court room lawyers to charge and bail lawyers and land speculators. Most of your insinuations are false. - Example - using GPS to get coordinates, this is totally wrong, not allowed and untrue. If you say people should use GPS to get coordinates, then you are indirectly promoting fake practice.

You also mentioned about people having software to read coordinates from - while you are not totally right there, there is nothing wrong in accurately getting coordinates of plots or boundary points off satellite Imagery which I think is what you are referring to.

As per putting free from government acquisition stamps - please note that this is not mandatory on all surveys - do your research very well, and because a land is not free from government acquisition does not mean you are buying a fake property or that your surveyor is fake - please research into what happens to you when your property is under government acquisition.

A beacon is not a stone - please this is hilarious - you need more research. You dont produce the survey before the beacons and numbers are placed, it is the other way round. LOL

Back dating - there is a legal reason for back dating survey plans - dont make it seem like all back dated plans are rubbish. You too get mouth.

It is a shame that you speak so deceitfully about a profession that is one of the oldest in Nigeria - every profession has bad people - if I research into you properly, I am sure I will find out you are a rubbish lawyer as well.

We will also do an expose on lawyers - including the hungry, charge and bail lawyers, the ones who will ask for money before they hear your brief, the ones whose white collar shirts are as dirty as my butt, the ones who fake documents and many more.

@werepeleri

I honestly believe you do selective reading and you just decided to reply because you saw the word Surveyor and immediately you thought it was a Surveyor profession bashing! How come you skipped this part:

P. S : For the avoidance of doubt, I am not attacking the Surveying Profession. It is a Profession filled with honorable people and they have an Institute of Nigerian Surveyors that regulates them. Only deal with REGISTERED SURVEYORS AND ASK FOR THEIR CREDENTIALS. No credential, Not registered, No business, No Search!!!!

Also did you not read the title which say Scams by FRADULENT land Surveyors? Are you anyway fraudulent that your against this expose? If your a successful and honourable surveyor, how come we havent seen any article of yours telling us about the Pros and Cons of the surveying profession and how to avoid pitfalls like the above expose? Maybe everything i have written is a bloody lie, gibberish and a very dishonest article, but then again have you done anything as a successful registered surveyor to correct the ills of other surveyors spoiling the profession and making people lose millions? Can you say everything i have said is a lie? Which lawyer can take coordinates or draw up a survey plan? So where did you get that information that lawyers have taken over the jobs of surveyors fraudulently? And your argument of surveyors not using a gps instrument to pick out coordinates of a land is unbelivably strange

Once again, where were you when i was about to buy my first land and i didnt know anything about surveyors or survey plans like every other ignorant first time property buyer and got messed up by a surveyor like you?

Where were you when another registered surveyor took the coordinates and said it was free and when the survey plan was done it was showing another place entirely?

Where were you when a survey plan was back dated and due to the advice of the surveyor that there was no problem and it was a normal thing and when the person attempted to do his Governor's consent he was heavily queried?

Where were you when because of the lack of this education i had a survey plan that wasnt stamped free from acquisition and i got into hot water at Alausa lands department during the C/O processing?

You dont criticize when you havent done anything to change the world or provide something useful to aid others. Most of the people reading this thing will be more informed and better educated than me 7 years ago when i had no one to teach me the pros and cons of avoiding Fraudulent land surveyors and if thats the only thing i can do to save people millions then i would pat myself on the back for a job well done.

FYI Your criticisms these days dont bother me and i am only responding to you personally because you claim to be a surveyor. Instead of you to condemn some of your colleagues for trying to bring your honourable profession into disrepute your here engaging me in an online rant. I have nothing to prove to anyone on Nairaland anymore based on my character and lifestyle and your free to conduct your own private investigation to see if am a fraudulent lawyer. Everyday i condemn my own colleagues that try to bring the legal profession into disrepute and i have so many articles here stating it and you wont see me promoting falsitude whether as a lawyer or any other profession. Fraud is fraud. It has no profession, tribe or gender. If you want to do something useful to help Nairalanders, write and article to help Nairalanders avoid such fraudulent colleagues of yours and what they should do to direct them to Good surveyors.

Finally most of this expose was given to me by a registered surveyor who advised me on how to avoid fraudulent ones spoiling the profession. So if you have any anger at this article, please look inwards and root out the ones giving your profession a bad name and ignore me! And please start writing about the top 10 things lawyers fraudulently do, i would be happy to give you another 20 to assist your article.

@ Others

Please if you have other fraudulent things some quack surveyors are doing to rip off property buyers please expose it here, we are all here to learn.

Cheers

10. And finally the mother of all Survey Plan Scams: Stamping and Non Stamping of the Free from of Acquisition Logo or stamp.
Simply put, without this stamp your land is in trouble. Full stop.

Once you don’t see it there, don’t even bother buying it or looking at it twice because it’s a problematic land. Most of these terrible and wicked Surveyors use this stamp to hoodwink people. If the land is not free, they will stamp it as free to confuse you until you do a search and find out that the land is a committed land.

In fact there is one very notorious Popular Registered Surveyor who has done this scam so much and has put a quarter of lagosians who have bought land in the lekki/ Ajah axis in trouble ( name withheld and I will only tell you if you’re a close friend or Nairalander who he is). He wont visit the land and will send his boys to go and draw out the sketch. Because of money, whether the land is free or not, he will just stamp free from acquisition on it and when wahala comes, it comes big time and its your own headache.

Because of that, a lot of dodgy and quack surveyors patronize his office. He wont even look at the survey plan, he will just demand N40,000 from them and automatically he will release his stamp and signature and attest the survey plan. The bad part of it is that most of these dodgy surveyors learnt this thing from him and have perfected it very well. Because of his reputation, a lot of people have used his firm to do Survey plans and along the line he became greedier and non chalant and today the surveyor general’s office is still sorting out his mess.

These quacks will go to any length to scam money from you by lying it is free after doing a ficticious land search and just because they know you will give them the contract to do the survey plan, they are just after your money first. So many people that have had their houses demolished, revoked or stolen by Omoniles are as a result of this Fraudulent ‘FREE FROM ACQUISITION STAMP’. And by the time you know about it your in debt to the tune of millions and your willing to dispose of the land immediately.

Even when you see the land is free from acquisition written on the survey plan, make sure it’s a Registerd surveyor you trust so that he can put your mind to rest and once you see on a Survey Plan, ( LAND UNDER GOVERNMENT ACQUISITION) Better pick race because any fight between you and Government is a sure Loss in your favour. Some people will still see LAND UNDER GOVERNMENT ACQUISITION STAMPED ON IT with their Korokoro eyes and still buy the land

Below are samples of Survey Plans that have Free from Government Acquisition Stamps and the ones that do not have it hereby showing you which Survey plans have problems and the ones that do not.

Study them carefully, TAKE OUT YOUR SURVEY PLANS and Compare. If its defective start planning on the next action to take unless it could come back to hunt you. This is not one of those Clownish Articles. Take this very serious.

Anyway am tired now! Hope you enjoyed this latest expose and please stop calling me to ask what a survey plan is anymore. Its all here done and written in its simplest form. My only job is to try to educate you on certain property issues I have encountered. Am not perfect and I don’t want you to experience the bad things I go through daily when am doing a search or trasanction on your behalf because it gets tiring and I need small help from you guys to make my own job easier.


Do have a wonderful week and Stay sharp eyed against land fraudsters!

9. Another Survey Plan scam which is very very important to note is the issue of Beacon numbers. A Beacon is a small stone on a land used to separate the 4 or 5 corners of a land to differentiate it from another land. Its used as a boundary guide so as to erect your fence and with those beacons you can locate your land. On top of the Stones are numbers written on it which can be found from the survey illustration below.

These Beacon numbers are Unique to only you and no 2 lands can share the same beacon numbers and its exactly what is written on the survey plan beacon numbers that must be written on the Beacon stones.

This is where the art of Scamming comes in. Naturally the money paid to the surveyor isn’t only for the drawing of the survey plan but also to purchase the Beacon numbers/ Beacon stones from the Nigerian institute of Surveyors and only a registered surveyor can do that and after purchasing it.

It’s the duty of the surveyor to go back to the Land to place the survey plan personally to reflect what is on the Survey plan. (IMPORTANT)

Rather the dodgy ones will do the following:

1.Not pay for the beacon numbers and unilateralily fabricate Beacon numbers

2.Lie to you they have purchased the Beacon numbers and have lodged the Survey plan at the Surveyor general’s office but they haven’t released them to him because of certain bureaucracies ( BIG LIE) Rather there is no beacon number purchased neither is there any bureaucracy preventing it because they haven’t lodged anything so you cannot get a Beacon number.

3. Tell you they have gone to the site to place the beacon numbers and when you get there you will discover there is none and he would tell you the omoniles came to remove the Beacons he placed there and you will be forced to give him more money to purchase new stones.

4. They will just place the Beacon stones there and not inscribe any number there. Those are just plain useless stones for decoration.

5. They will place the Beacon stones there and inscribe rubbish or numbers that don’t correlate because they know you wont bother to check. When the wahala come Surveyor don disappear.

6. The will buy cement on their own and mix rubbish blocks. During rainy season, the block will crumble and the numbers disappear.

7. Omoniles will always know a quack surveyor so they monitor his every move and when he makes a mistake they will remove the beacons and tell everyone that the land has been a jungle since and they are the real owners.

8. Sometimes the Omonile and Surveyor will just collude together and they will place the beacons in a wrong land and you wont know until wahala show face.

Beacons are Very Important and you shouldn’t neglect them at all. Always go and check whether they are still there or not and cross check with your survey plan to know whether its still your land.

8. A survey plan will always show the shape of the land and the existing road. The shape of the land is very important as it will guide your architect on how to draw the structure on the land properly and it also helps with the layout of the area so that nobody encroaches on your own land.

Its very important to take note of that because Omoniles cash in when the existing road is not properly drawn out. That’s when you hear Omonile’s selling roads and adjoining lands to other users because the land is not properly defined in the survey. Always ask the Surveyor to show you personally where he derived the existing road from and how it connects with your land.

7.Another thing you should always look out for when doing a survey search is to Look for the Logo and Signature of the Registered Surveyor. Without the Signature and logo of the person who drew up the survey plan, your holding a dud document.

The logo usually carries their address and they must sign to provide the authencity of the survey plan. Please always look out for this unless your dealing with quacks, so that incase there is a problem with the survey, the registered surveyor will assume full liability of the problem, but when you deal with a quack, how do you get your money, land or proper survey? Does a quack surveyor have an address?

Shine your eye o!

6.This one is the koko of all the Survey plan scams you can think of and that’s is the Date the Survey plan was made. This has been used to hoodwink thousands of buyers in Lagos and when it matters the most they come up short. It is what is known as BACK-DATING.

Naturally if a Survey plan is being done today it should show done on the 24th day of April 2012, but sometimes you see a very clean survey plan and you see done on the 25th day of March 2001 and you wonder when was the land bought, when was the area given an excision or C/O and what time did the place open up?

If you take this survey plan to Alausa you wont see ANY COPY of the lodged one because it has been fraudulently backed dated to make you believe it was done a long time ago but if you check well you will find out that it was done just probably last year. This scam is well perfected with the Owner, the agent, Surveyor and Omonile to hood wink you into buying it. The ramifications are endless.

Case Study:

There was this land I had to do a search on and I asked for the receipt ( Am so good at these things now that I can detect the fraud from my office these days . . . lol ) The receipt was showing land bought in 1992. I said no wahala, what about the survey plan? It was showing 1997. I said no wahala maybe the man did not have money to do the survey that time. I then decided to ask for the gazette of the area and it was showing me 2007. I asked for the building plan he said he had but did not use it but it was showing 1995

I asked him how he could draw a building plan before the survey, he started giving me the greatest bulls**t stories I have ever heard.Telling me about how he owned the land in 1988 before the family gave him the receipt in 1992 and because he knew it was his land his brother who is an architect measured it himself and did the building plan in 1995 before he had money to do the survey plan in 1997.

I agreed with him and quietly took the survey plan to the Surveyor general’s office to compare. The first person I saw there started laughing because he knew it was a backed dated survey plan and told me not to worry my self because there wouldn’t be any record of it. He said if I probe further that survey plan must have been done 2 or 3 years ago so as to coincide with the new gazette.

The dangers of a back dated survey plan is that it will be very difficult to process your papers when they find out and you wont know the true history of the land because it could be another person’s land that they have stolen and attempting to sell to you or have sold to you and done a backdated survey to confuse people into thinking its an old property so its free from defect. Please shine your eyes here.

5. Another Important part of the Survey plan that you must look out for is the Survey Plan Number. This is a classic scam that some surveyors use to deceive people. They will draw up the whole survey plan but conveniently hide the Survey Plan. Without a survey plan number your survey is as good as useless. Your child’s drawings are probably worth more in Value than your survey plan.

Without that Survey plan number, it cannot be lodged at the surveyor general’s office for record purposes, it cannot be used to draft your agreement, it cannot be used to trace the red copy and I cannot be used as evidence in court during a property law suit because its defective from the start.

It is always at the lower right hand corner of a survey plan and because these dodgy surveyors don’t intend to lodge the red copy they end up not giving the survey a Survey plan number. They will tell you the have lodged it but it hasn’t been lodged because there is no record file of it. Always check for the Survey plan number at first glance.

4.Fourthly one of the most important things in a survey plan is the Area or the size of the land. This is one area these dodgy surveyors perform the most havoc to the owner of the land.

Because they don’t come with the proper tools to measure the land, they don’t get the exact square meters of a land. They either short change or unnecessarily add extra meters to make it look larger than normal or fabricate corner pieces. This is where every potential land owner must sacrifice time to visit the land when they are measuring the land or send a representative.

Normally there is a surveying instrument they use to just get the square meters of the coordinates after measuring it but I don’t trust these boys. The old measuring tape is fine by me. You will know exactly what your getting. The only reason you shouldn’t go there is ‘If you trust your surveyor’ Apart from that, you must be there with him. One meter reduced from your land will be added to another person’s land and automatically your looking at a border dispute case.

There are a plethora of cases regarding this particular issue and I will tell you a classic that occurred last year at ABIJO when i did a search for a Nairalander .

CASE STUDY

After a rigourous search had been done on a land at ABIJO, I finally agreed that the land is free from encumberance and the transaction should take place. I visited the site unannounced the next day uncharacteristically and I studied the survey plan given to me and the one I just visited. The survey plan was showing 729 SQUARE METERS and this made the Owner say he is adding extra price to the Amount agreed for.

This price increment led to several quarrels and the man wasn’t ready to buldge because his surveyor told him it was more than a plot and a regular plot is above 600 SQUARE METERS. I now told him we wanted to measure the land ourselves to get the true value of the size AND that one caused another serious problem But as soon as he saw the cheque book of the Client falling from her Bag who said she was willing to pay him on the spot once they measure it, he agreed and after measuring it we got 512 Square meters .

The Seller almost ran mad.It was not even up to one full plot.We jejely carried out 2 left legs and left the site (Lol)

The size of a land determines how much the land will go for and the amount of space required to put your building and the amount remaining for right of way/Set back. Because of this, Dodgy surveyors collude with the owners of land to fraudulently misrepresent the actual size of the land so that they can benefit from it financially from the Seller. Also a false size of the land will change the way your being assessed for your Governor’s consent/ Building Approval, so you must be very vigilant about this so you wont get duped by these people.

3. The third thing you have to look out for in a Survey Plan is the Address. This is also where you will find a lot of fraudulent things done by the surveyor and Omonile. Because the Omoniles want to do something dodgy, they wont put the name of the street, Area or Local government correctly.

Imagine you seeing a Survey plan and the address written is ( At Ajah) Where is at Ajah? Ajah has over 100 towns and communities. So when the surveyor writes (AT AJAH) Know there is a problem. The only permissible excuse for this is if the Land is located in an Undeveloped area and there are no visible layouts or perimeter boundaries to locate the area in question, then its permissible to just use that AT AJAH ( But the adjoining community must be added. E.g AT OKUN AJAH WITHIN AJAH IN ETI-OSA LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA.

The Omoniles use this to hood wink people into buying wrong places they should't buy. Because the person is interested in buying a good place they have not set their eyes on, they fall victim of the survey plan and its mostly Nigerians living abroad they use this scam for. (Beware of them)

Also check properly for the local government area written in the Survey plan unless it could alter the whole thing. E.G BOGIJE Is in IBEJU LEKKI LOCAL GOVERNMENT And not in ETI-OSA. If your survey plan shows that Bogije is in Eti-Osa local government or Ogba is in Ojodu Local Government,it is a defective plan. Always know the local government the Land is being located unless it will cost you.

2. The second thing you look for in a survey plan is the Registered Seal of the Surveyor who did the Survey plan. Without this Seal please don’t even touch the survey plan. Most of these quacks don’t have the seal so they show unsuspecting land buyers survey plans without it. The ones that think they are smart end up stealing the Seal of their “OGAS’ But you wont see the registration number there. Always ask for the Registration Card of the Surveyor and Check for the seal unless the whole survey plan is defective.

1. The first thing you have to look out for in a survey plan is the Name. An example or illustration of a survey plan with the name is below. Without that name the whole survey plan is a problem. A simple spelling mistake of the name can nullify the whole survey plan and its very important to make sure you look at the name properly before accepting it from the surveyor.

CASE STUDY: PROBLEM WITH SURVEY PLAN NAME:

A land buyer approached a Seller WHOSE NAME WAS MR BOLA JACKSON who wanted to buy a land and ordinarily asked him for the survey plan so that he could do his checks to confirm whether it was free. When the buyer got to the Surveyor general’s office to check whether the red copy has been placed, he found another person having the name MR BALA JACKSON (Notice the difference in names between Bola and Bala) who bought land in the same area and Bala Jackson had registered his own. Apparently the Omoniles had discovered this error and did not alert the true owner of the land Mr BOLA Jackson and the owner himself did not spot it.

It was very difficult for Mr BOLA Jackson to do a change of name correction and even prove he was the owner of the land. The mental stress and anguish the Seller faced during that period was unimaginable because once the name has been lodged in the data base or original list as the true owner of the survey, it automatically means all other documents must follow the same pattern because of that name problem and it automatically leads to identity theft or false misrepresentation of that person.

As for the surveyor, e don run go since and the real Mr Bola had to spend money again to redo the survey plan in his name and pay other fees to rectify that simple error before he could attempt to resell the land. So Once you see the slightest spelling error in the name from a Survey Plan, be very adamant that the surveyor gets the spelling correct unless it could pose problems for you. The Quack Surveyors are very good with this because they do things rush rush without thinking and are only concerned about the money they are ripping off from you.

See the Image below to see a copy of a Survey plan with the sample name on it (REAL NAME HIDDEN TO PROTECT PRIVACY OF THE PERSON)

Another set of people I should blame is the Office of the Surveyor General for not simplifying things to make people have easy access to having the land information properly endorsed from their office. They tell you that before you can get a land information, you must do the survey plan first which could cost up to N150,000 or more and after that you can now apply for the Land information certificate which is around the N30,000 to N50,000 mark but am not too sure about the current price.

Major question now is, what if the land is under acquisition and the surveyor makes a mistake after they have spent N150,000 PLUS to do a survey plan since there is nothing like a provisional survey plan, Do you get a refund? How many survey plans will you continually spend money on before you get a Land information certificate? If all the lands your going to search all fall within Government acquisition and are not free, who absolves the cost? E.g you do like 4 searches to buy a land at Eleko and all the 4 survey plans all show they are not free or committed lands and you have spent almost N600,000 to do a survey plan and the land is worth N1Million, would it encourage you to buy lands? This is just part of the insensitivity of Government policy makers who are content on making people pay more and not care about the costs of the search. That’s why people will continue to use these Quack surveyors and pray your dealing with a registered approved God fearing surveyor who has your interest at heart.

Some people will say the surveyor should take the coordinates from the land and go personally to the surveyor General’s office to cross check. Question: How would you know he crossed checked it properly? Because the Client did not pay them properly through mobilization to do the search and secondly most of them have the software of Coordinates of the whole Lagos on their computers and they do the mapping there, they will just compare the coordinates with the ones on their system and forget that since it’s a software, its being upgraded everyday.

So what might be free today, might be revoked tomorrow and its only at the surveyor general’s office they can confirm authoritatively.

I myself have been a victim of 3-4 lands not because of some stupid greedy omoniles but because of dodgy surveyors and fraudulent survey plans and that’s why I had to almost give up doing searches until I met a new God fearing Registered Surveyor and for the past one year I have been grateful to God for meeting her. She helped me expose most of the fraudulent things her colleagues have been doing to people and things to watch out for and I have taken my time to money to educate you guys about the pros and cons of a survey plan and what you should watch out for and I will give you some practical experiences I have encountered so as to guide and aid you to avoid making the same mistakes a lot of Nigerians including Yours truly have encountered in the hands of these Dodgy Surveyors.

P. S : For the avoidance of doubt, I am not attacking the Surveying Profession. It is a Profession filled with honorable people and they have an Institute of Nigerian Surveyors that regulates them. Only deal with REGISTERED SURVEYORS AND ASK FOR THEIR CREDENTIALS. No credential, Not registered, No business, No Search!!!!

Quite a while peeps. Una don wahala me tire to write articles, so as a servant to the people I must heed that clarion call.

This article to me is the most important Land related Article I am writing to date and I really would love all of you interested in buying properties or those that have bought lands to take this article very seriously. It has to deal with SURVEY PLANS and why it is a very important document that can either make you bankrupt or successful in a land purchase.

I am exposing this because I have also been a victim of terrible and wicked surveyors who would go to any length to lie, cheat and produce fake Survey plans having problems hereby leading to so many land purchase wahalas.

In fact the number one land problem in Lagos today isn’t the famed Omoniles as we all choose to believe but dangerous and dodgy surveyors. Most of them parading themselves are Quacks and not registered Surveyors and they collude actively with omoniles and Land fraudsters to cause mayhem. They distort survey plans, forge signatures, steal (Free from Acquisition) Stamps, Fabricate square meters to make it look big but by the time they measure it its some hundred meters short, they fail to put the beacon numbers on the floor to reflect the points where the property starts and stops, they create fictious existing roads and generally destroy the plan of the whole community.

The greatest crime these surveyors do is to carry out fake coordinates and that to me kills the potential buyer. Naturally a surveyor should take coordinates of the area using their GPS machine and compare it with the master plan obtainable at the Surveyor general’s office, instead these Terrible surveyors bank on the ignorance of everyone, take fake coordinates and tell you it is free from acquisition and we accept it without asking questions. By the time buyers take it for their governor’s consent or Ratification, you will get a letter from Alausa querying it saying the property is not free from Government acquisition or that a land which is ordinarily should be located in Ogombo will be showing Ibeju Lekki on the master survey plan at Alausa.
The truth here too is that we the buyers also encourage these dodgy surveyors to do a lot of fraudulent things because we don’t pay their search money or do the proper thing like obtaining Land information to show the true status of the property.

I have been involved countless times on behalf of clients who are not ready to pay lets say N30,000 to a surveyor to do a proper search result and document it from their office. They will rather give the surveyor N3,000 for fuel and they expect the surveyor to give them a proper result for a property worth over N1Million Naira. Even me sef, Una de pay me well to do search?

( We Nairalanders sef get our own for bodi)

Thanks blank, they will be banned ASAP for violating the rules !

Cheers

@Blank

Am forever grateful to you for pointing theses errant posters out. As for 4EvaGod he/she is a serial spammer and has been warned over and over again to desist from it but wont stop, i guess i would take a stricter stand on the above poster.

Look at the last warnings:

(0) (of 1 pages)
lawyer banned 4everGod1 from Properties for You dont listen. You were just banned to stop posting more than 3 topics per day or bumping up more than 3 topics and your doing it again! at March 24, 2012 at 02:29:11 AM. Ban expired at April 07, 2012 at 02:29:11 AM
lawyer banned 4everGod1 from Property Ads for You were warned yesterday to desist from bumping 3 posts and spamming the board but you dont just want to listen. at March 15, 2012 at 01:51:10 PM. Ban expired at March 17, 2012 at 01:51:10 PM

Its really sad and they will come out to say am wicked or being partial

Very simple, contact your nearest property lawyer and he will take the matter up. Since their tenancy has validly expired, You issue an Owners intention to recover premises within 7 days notice to them. Its no longer a quit notice from the landlord but an Owner's intention to recover premises. After that you file same at the nearest rent tribunal nearest to you presenting all the documents showing that the quit notice is valid and voila the judge gives judgement in your favour to throwout the tenants using court sherriffs. But it could take you between 1-3months (Justice is slow) lol

Cheers

@Origin4lif

without going to the Ogun State land bureau, you can see even the survey you put up here has no stamp where it is written 'FREE FROM GOVERNMENT ACQUISITION' I am so experienced enough to know that this land is not free and the worst is that it needs ratification before the land can be approved to you. Once a surveyor doesnt stamp free from Acquisition on your survey plan, know already its a problem land and he just did the survey plan to chop your money.

Cheers

@Yemilala

There is no way a property in Magodo Phase 2 wont have a C/O. Its just not possible. Ask the owner properly and they will bring it out from where they are hiding it.

Also yes you can do a search with a gazette, survey plan or deed but the deed must be registered

Cheers