Don't Be A Victim. Investigate Every Property Before You Buy Any Land This 2014
submitted saturday 29 june 2014 by Naomi /s/Properties    report abuse

Hi Everyone! 2012 and 2013 was great for so many reasons because i made people finally realise they have the power to determine how they buy property before throwing away their hard earned money. Personally i feel very very fulfilled that i did my best to help a lot of Nairalanders search properties and recommend the ones that are valid and the ones that have so many hidden problems that by the time you purchase it, you end up having more headaches than when you previously didnt buy any land. I was doing my calculation yesterday and i realised i have turned down almost N165Million worth of properties that were advertised to be sold to intending purchasers that had so many hidden scruples that the agents and omoniles wont tell you till you commit your money and then its from frying pan to fire. smiley

For the avoidance of doubt for First Time Property/Land Buyers or New Nairaland Property Viewers and Readers who dont know what a property search is, it means before you buy any land or property whatso ever in any form or shape where ever, you have to know the validity of it.

Lagos in particular is so notorious when it comes to sale of property or land that have so many fraudulent defects surrounding that land/ property that you wont even know what has hit you. These set of people are known as the Omoniles, land grabbers or land touts.

Omoniles naturally should mean owners of the original land which includes the original family that truthfully inherited the property from their fore fathers that has passed down to them. But the real problem comes when there are so many members of the family that are divided in terms of claiming ownership of the lands and how the land truthfully devolved to them. Before you know it, a property that is meant to be shared by a family of 3 to claim ownership is now being contested by the brother in law, the aunty, the great grand uncle relatives etc and thats when they begin to employ touts going around to masquerade as the original owners with the right to sell and after you fall victim of their sweet tongues and coercion, you realise that you bought from the wrong family or the wrong set of people who have no right to sell the land to you and you would be confronted by the original owners when you have started building half way and forced to cough out another payment to the real owners or be thrown out of the land. Trust me this scourge is very very real and 65% of lands in lagos have this problem one way or the other.

The other way your being decieved is by telling you the genuiness of the property comes from a set of documents. Those set of documents include either a survey plan, a deed of assignment, a certificate of occupancy, government allocation letter, government gazette or governors consent.

They will show you all manners of papers to make you believe them instantly and start pointing to different houses around there that has been built by one commissioner or one Minister or one big man and that their houses are still standing without any government wahala. What they want you to do is to instantly believe them and pay money to them immediately. One thing you can be rest assured is that, once you pay money to an Omonile, you will never ever ever get a refund of that money. Its gone and in some cases its in your front they will start sharing the money.

Dont ever ever fall for that trick. Always demand for what ever documents they have. I will point out the importance of each document to know the relevance of it and why it shouldn't be taken for granted.

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