READ IF YOU DON’T WANT TO LOSE MONEY OR GO TO JAIL for buying a Property with your own money. We have looked at the importance of land titles and documents. After knowing the documents a land has, the next thing you must do is to conduct a LAND SEARCH with the Document . Avoiding this can cause you premium tears . We are going to be looking at these 4 places you can do your search before buying a land.
It is better to spend time and money to do these searches than to lose money in buying a wrong land .
- Lands Registry: If the property has a registered title like a Crown Grant, Land Certificate, Registered Conveyance, Registered Court Judgement, Certificate of Occupancy, or a
Governor’s Consent, the place to search is the Lands Registry where you are to obtain the Certified True Copy of the registered title. This is because the Lands Registry keeps record of transactions of land which have been brought to the knowledge of the state through the process of registration.
- Surveyor General’s Office:
If the property does not have a registered title and you desire to know the status of the land as well as the zoning, the Surveyor General’s Office is the place to go to where you are to obtain a Land Information Certificate (LIC). The LIC will inform you about the status of the land – free, excised, acquired or committed as well as the zoning of the land – Residential, commercial, industrial or agricultural. This will also assist the buyer to know what title will be processed on the property – Certificate of Occupancy, Ratification or if no title can be gotten on the property. The surveyor’s office in Ibadan is also in Ministry of lands , Secretariat. For those of us in DELTA, is in ASABA, same thing applies to other States. Most of these offices are in the State capital, in the ministry of lands.
Sometimes last month, I met someone who wanted to buy a property, he contacted us to do the search on his behalf. On getting to the Ministry of lands in Ibadan to verify the Red Copy Survey, we discovered that first, the survey was not registered in the registry and that the land is part of Federal highway. Imagine the person has not done this search, he would have bought the land and lose later in life. This search is what any one can you. For those of you in Ibadan, you can go to Secretariat Ministry of lands with your survey for the search. You can also contact an expert like us at MODESTY REAL ESTATE and we will conduct the search for you. This is why you must learn to use an expert in buying your land.
- Probate Registry:
The Probate Section of the Court is the segment saddled with the responsibility of dealing with matters relating to the estate of a deceased person. If the holder of the registered title is deceased, there will be the need for a probate search to determine the authenticity of the Probate Grant or Letters of Administration. If the title holder makes a Will before his death, the Will will be entered into Probate and a Probate Grant will be obtained before an Assent will be made by the Executors of the Will to the named beneficiaries. If the property holder dies without a Will, the survivors will apply for a Letter of Administration to administer the Estate of the deceased. The Administrators of the Estate shall be legally entitled to transfer the property to the would-be buyer.
- Court Registry:
If there is a suspicion of a legal dispute relating to the property, a search in the Court Registry should be conducted. When there is a legal dispute in relation to a property, such property is said to be Lis Pendens. Lagos State has the Lagos State Lis Pendens Electronic Information System accessible online at http://lagoslispendens.com.ng/ which shows properties that have pending litigation at any of the divisions of the Lagos State High Court. A search on the platform can give preliminary information regarding the existence of a legal dispute in relation to the property.
At Modesty Real Estate, you are sure to buy properties that have been fully searched and verified. You can be rest assured that you are buying peace of mind when buying from us. We can also assist you with the land searches for your lands and landed properties.
- Social/Area Search
This number five is what I called “Social Search”. If after you have done the other searches above, you still need to probe further, a social search is recommended. One of the most revealing searches to conduct is Social Search. This involves going to the property in question and asking neighbours, shop owners and transporters (like Okada men) in the area about the property in question. Facts about the property not revealed in documents are often revealed via Social Search .This social search Is VERYVERY IMPORTANT Imagine , you are buying a Property that has no official Government paper, How will you know if the land is genuine? It is through THOROUGH social search . Every land has his origin. It can be traced through all these searches from the time it was first allocate . You can always tip area men with a token , then you are sure to get all the information you need for the property. This gift has a way of opening people to you .A property having the genuine land documents cannot over rule the IMPORTANCE of social search .In this search, you will get to know if they were disputes on the land before.
