At 5% cost, Abuja, Enugu lead peers in ease of property registration

Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory and Enugu State in the South-East, are leading the 35 other  major cities of the country, with relatively cheaper cost of registering property, BusinessDay checks have shown. The two are also leading at geo-political zonal level

As against 15 percent of the property value charged by the Lagos State government for registering property, Abuja charges between 3 and 7 percent while Enugu charges 5 percent and, according to our checks, the Federal Capital C Territory Administration (FCTA) does not even ask an applicant to pay to obtain a form.

Nigeria is one of the most expensive property markets globally, and the cost of land has been identified as the most expensive component of housing development and delivery in the country.

It is the singular reason for the country’s low home ownership rate, at a little above 10 percent and also accounts for the wide housing demand-supply gap estimated at 17 million units.

In Enugu, land acquisition and registration are digitalised and our checks reveal that an applicant does not necessarily have to be in the state before he gets his transactions processed and his documents  mailed to him.

Olisa Agbakoba, the legal adviser to Berverly & Sam Properties—developers of luxury apartments in Apo, Abuja, confirmed to BusinessDay that Abuja is leading not just the whole of the Northern Nigeria, but also the major cities of the country, in the ease of registering property and delivering houses.

“Abuja presents better opportunities not just in land charges, but also in cheap labour. The city is the highest construction activity rates in all of Africa, accommodating all types of developments for  low, middle and high income buyers, unlike Lagos, where developments are concentrated at the high end market”, Agbakoba noted, pointing out that all these however depended on the location.

He further said, whereas Delta State in the South-South Geopolitical Zone of the country charges 7-10 percent value of the property to register it, Benin, also in the South, has the best approach to it, explaining that to register a property in Benin City, the Oba of Benin has to endorse it and once this is done, registration becomes easy with the state government.

Teniola Eleoramo, Group Managing Director of Kohath Investment Group Limited, also confirmed to BusinessDay that Abuja is investor friendly in terms of registering property, disclosing that “because Abuja is less bureaucratic than Lagos, we were able to conclude the transaction for the development of our project much earlier.

Kohath Investment Group are in Nigeria to develop what it calls Land of Honey City in Abuja, Lagos and Port Harcourt,  a project it describes as the largest real estate development in Sub-Saharan Africa, sitting on 1,727 hectares of land and consisting of an ultra-modern entertainment centre, commercial park and residential buildings.

BusinessDay had reported in an earlier survey that in terms of speed, that is the time it takes to conclude land registration, Lagos and Kano were leading the 34 other states  and Abuja.

According to the survey, the speed of registration in Lagos is such that it takes just 30 days for an applicant who has met the necessary requirements, including payment of all relevant fees, to pick up his/her Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) from the government, while in Kano, it takes an applicant six weeks to get his deal done. All these are however, possible with official procedures.

In Lagos, processes related to land acquisition could even be concluded in less than one month from the day an applicant for state-owned land sends in his application, as it takes about five days from the time the application is received for an officer in charge of any government scheme applied for, to process the application and create a file for the applicant.

In terms of cost, rates applicable in the location of the property are multiplied by the total land size, to arrive at the assessment.

In every case, the charges payable are as follows: Consent Fee, 8%; Capital Gains Tax, 2 percent; Stamp Duty, 2 percent; Registration Fee, 3 percent, bringing the total to 15 percent of the assessment.

In Oyo, our survey reveals that it takes about 90 days and in  Akwa Ibom, it is a long, tedious and indeterminate process that  is also costly.

CHUKA UROKO