23/04/2020
IS YOUR REAL ESTATE PROPERTY TRULY YOURS? By: Ayodeji Oladimeji
I know the topic might sound confusing to you. I mean, how can ‘your property” not be yours Confusing, right? That is how most people end up being confused when the government comes to take over their properties if they can’t prove ownership of it. So, how do you prove ownership of your property? What are the documents you need to present?
1. Payment Receipt:
Sometime last year, a person very close to me purchase some plots of land in Ikorodu. When I asked him for the prove of ownership, he brought out a hand-written receipt. I asked him if there was any other document I could see and he said there wasn’t. Later in the year, the government started building a structure on the property and he couldn’t lay a claim on the property because he had no prove of ownership. The problem was not that he had no receipt, but how valid is the receipt he had? Most people do not know the importance of bank transfers, and when buying property avoid cash payment as much as you can. The most advisable method of payment should be in a bank draft or cheque and there must be a lawyer involved in the transaction. The role of the lawyer is to serve as a witness in a time of dispute.
2. Deed of Assignment
A deed of assignment is a legal document showing the parties involved and what they agreed on. It also shows a history of the land and how it has been exchanging hands till it gets to its present owner. It is important that a deed of assignment contains the name of the family owner who sold the land and it must be duly stamped and dated by concerned individuals.
3.Survey Plan
This is considered to be a valuable document that you must demand from the family/company selling the land to you. It is advisable that this should be one of the documents to request for during land investment. Armed with the survey plan, you can go for the geographical search to ascertain if the piece of land has not been designated for government in the future. Relatively few have burned their fingers over failure to carry out a proper research on land before investing.
Survey plan shows all the beacon number, plan number the name of the qualif
