UNDERSTANDING LAND DOCUMENTS
For you to be a Professional in real estate, you need
detailed understanding of these documents in order to guide and educate your
client that may not know what they are. Please study it.
Prices of land are largely determined by these titles that
a piece of land will get or by its nearness to a major landmark.
Documents you must know in this business
SURVEY PLAN
A Survey plan is a document that measures the boundary of
a parcel of land to give an accurate measurement and description of that land.
The people that handle survey issues are Surveyors and they are regulated by
the office of the Surveyor general in Lagos as it relates to survey issues in
Lagos. A survey plan must contain the following information:
1. The name of the owner of the land surveyed
2. The Address or description of the land surveyed
3. The size of the land surveyed
4. The drawn out portion of the land survey and mapped out
on the survey plan document
5. The beacon numbers
6. The surveyor who drew up the survey plan and the date
it was drawn up
7. A stamp showing the land is either free from Government
acquisition or not
EXCISION
Land Use Decree on the 28th of March, 1978 that vested all
lands in every state of the Federation under the control of the State
Governors. The Land Use Act coupled with other laws made it possible for the
Governor who was now the owner of all lands in the state to actually have the
power to acquire more lands compulsorily for its own public purpose to provide
amenities for the greater good of the citizens.
Fortunately, the government recognizes that indigenes of
different sections of the country have a right to existence . . . a right to
the land of their birth. Hence, it is customary for state government to cede a
portion of land to the original owners (natives) of each area.
An Excision means basically taking a part from a whole and
that part that has been excised will be recorded and documented in the official
government gazette of that state.
GAZETTE
A Gazette is an Official record book where all special
government details are spelt out, detailed and recorded
A gazette will show the communities or villages that have
been granted excision and the number of acres or hectares of land that the
government has given to them. It is within those excised acres or hectares that
the traditional family is entitled to sell its lands to the public and not
anything outside those hectares of land given or excised to them.
A Gazette is a very powerful instrument the community owns
and can replace a Certificate of Occupancy to grant title to the Villagers. A
community owning a gazette can only sell lands to an individual within those
lands that have been excised to them and the community or family head of that
land has the right to sign your documents for you if you purchase lands within
those excised acres or hectares of land.
DEED
OF ASSIGNMENT
A Deed of Assignment is an Agreement between the Seller of
a Land or Property and a Buyer of that Land or property showing evidence that
the Seller has transferred all his rights, his title, his interest and
ownership of that land to that the Seller that has just bought land.
The Deed of Assignment has been exchanged between both
parties, it has to be recorded in the land registry to show legal proof that
the land has exchanged hands and the public should be aware of the transaction.
Such recorded Deed of Assignment come in the form of either a _Governor’s
Consent_ or _*Registered Conveyance
CERTIFICATE
OF OCCUPANCY
A Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) issued by the Lagos
State Government officially leases Lagos land to you, the applicant, for 99
yrs. As already indicated above, all lands belong to the Government.
A C of O however is the officially recognized Document for
demonstrating Right to a Land.
What happens after 99 years? That question is still
subject of debate among experts. Most have adopted a wait-and-see attitude.
Others postulate that as the new owner of the land, you the buyer can renew the
certificate of occupancy when it expires. That makes sense, but for now is
largely a case of “We shall see when we get there”.😄
Meaning
& Brief History of Gazette
Before the Land-Use Act in 1978 was enacted, Traditional
families who had so much land power under their control benefited from taking
pleasure over all the rights given to the land owners. Because of this mega-power
they wielded with land, they gave out lands to individuals under a tenancy
system for them to use the land either for fishing or farming while they still
maintained control over the portion of the land given to the individual. It
wasn’t until the creation of Lagos Executive Development Board in the 1950s
that individuals where now able to acquire land from the board directly in
exchange for a sum of money instead of going to meet the traditional families
to obtain land.
This led to the Traditional Families now splitting their
lands to keep some for the family use and others for sale to individuals
directly to compete with the Lagos Executive Development. This system still
made the Traditional Families total top dogs in exercising exclusive rights with
lands they chose to sell and the ones they chose to keep. This eventually led
to the birth of land speculation in Nigeria because lands were very expensive
to purchase and difficult to obtain. Because of this and other ancillary
reasons, it finally led to the promulgation of the Land Use Decree on the 28th
of March, 1978 that vested all lands in every state of the Federation under the
control of the State Governors.
People could now directly obtain land from the Governor
and the Governor could allocate land to the individual or Companies inquiring
about land and issue certificate of occupancy to these people it has allocated
land to.
The land use act coupled with other laws made it possible
for the Governor who was now the owner of all lands in the state to actually
have the power to acquire more lands compulsorily for its own public purpose to
provide Amenities for the greater good of the citizens.
The Acquisition of land from the Family by the Governor
who is now the custodian of all lands in the state was now empowered by the
Land Use Act to take the general control and management of all URBAN land and
any area designated as an Urban area by the Governor shall be published in an
Official Government Record book known as the *Gazette.* Any area, community or
village the Governor designates as an Urban Area is an Acquired land and the
rest of the land it has not Acquired may be given back to the community it was
acquired from in the form of an Excision. *“An Excision means basically taking
a part from a whole and that part that has been excised will be recorded and
documented in the official government gazette of that state.”*
So for example if in 1981, Victoria Island, Ikoyi and
Lekki were all part of one big Community joined together called Oniru and it had
no separation to know which area is called ikoyi, Lekki or V.I then and it has
an approximate total area square meters estimate of 100,000 square meters and
the Government is interested in that area and decides to take 70,000 square
meters for its self for its own personal use as an Urban Area or public
purpose, it will record this acquisition in the official government gazette and
also record that the remaining 30,000 square meters has been left alone for the
traditional family to have and do with it whatever it pleases it to do. This is
the sweet relationship between a land under acquisition, an excision and
gazette.
A gazette is an
official record book where all special government details are spelt out,
detailed and recorded. A gazette will show the communities or villages that
have been granted excision and the number of acres or hectares of land that the
government has given to them. It is within those excised acres or
hectares that the traditional family is entitled to sell its lands to the
public and not anything outside those hectares of land given or excised to
them.
If they decide to sell anything outside the excised land,
then that land is under acquisition by the government and it is a very bad land
to buy.
Special
Features of a Gazette include the following:
The first page of a Gazette must have the following unless
it is a dubious or fake Gazette
v The
Logo of the Country and the inscription of the title “LAGOS STATE OF NIGERIA
OFFICIAL GAZETTE”
v Underneath
it must have the Number, Volume, Page, Date and the Location it was signed into
law e.g. No 26 in pages 200 to 291, Volume 87 dated 14th of August 2011 and
have the contents of the list of the Villages, Settlements and parcels of land
excised back to the community.
The Inner pages will show the following:
· The
description of the Area or Village excised
· The
number of Acres or Hectares of land excised to the Village
· Where
the boundaries of the beacons start and stop
· The
page the description of the Village excised.
A Gazette is a very powerful instrument the community owns
and can replace a Certificate of Occupancy to grant title to the Villagers. A
community owning a gazette can only sell lands to an individual within those
lands that have been excised to them and the community or family head of that
land has the right to sign your documents for you if you purchase lands within
those excised acres or hectares of land. If the government based on some
reasons best known to them decides to revoke or acquire your land, you will be
entitled to compensation as long as it’s within the Excised lands given to that
community.
The best way to know whether a land is under acquisition
or has an excision that has been covered by a Gazette is to get a surveyor to
chart the site and take it to the surveyor general’s office to do a land
information to confirm whether it falls within the gazette and spell out which
particular location it can be found.
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