Acquiring trouble-free lands from traditional land owners; the intrigues, the panacea (2)

In real estate, many investors love triple net leases (NNN). With NNN’s investors receive income without the expenses of taxes, repairs and insurance. The tenant covers these costs”- Robert Kiyosaki

Truly, the count-down to The Leadership Conference 3.0 has begun. The freeze is everywhere. Property Logic is gearing up to unleash those top secret you never knew about Property and Real Estate. Did I tell you The Ambassador Radio, the Pioneer Campus radio in Nigeria is fully involved in this too? Tune in to The Ambassador Radio to be amazed at the volume of preparedness that has been put in place for The Leadership 3.0 2015, at the prestigious Unilag Multipurpose Hall, Akoka, Yaba, Lagos, Nigeria. This is one event you won’t be happy to mix come October 15th, 2015. It is loaded. Experts in all walks of life are expected. Various human endeavors will be in full discourse. Real Estate for instance will be discussed not just by academics in the category of Ph.D holders in Housing & Urban Development. Men of timber and caliber; movers and shakers in the Property and Real Estate sub-sector will be on stage. Now, what will take your attention away from this epoch-making event that day? Surely, we are counting down.

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We started a series in our last edition. The series of calls I got after the first edition of this series is a clear testimony to the fact that traditional land buying and its attendant intrigues should be a subject for national discourse. I am already working on something in this direction at TLC 3. 0. It is a major issue and a huge debacle in the drive towards realizing unimpeded housing accessement for Nigerians. Please join me as we examine some few more steps that you could find very useful in buying into traditional lands.

The sixth Step towards acquiring trouble-free lands from traditional land owners is making documentable and verifiable payment.  Payments for such lands no matter how meager or huge the financial sum involved must be made in verifiable ways such as bank transfers, band lodgments, cheques, drafts and any other mode of payments that allow records to be kept and easily accessed. As soon as such payments are made, receipts must be obtained and securely kept. It is not a very wise decision to exchange cash. Such transactions are fraught with unimaginable risks and could be a huge burden to verify once issues come up. Where cash must be exchanged, if it becomes inevitable, special acknowledgements must be obtained in writing from the receivers of such cash d sellers and acknowledged photocopies of identifications should be obtained from same. It is also advisable for witnesses to be around when such cash payments are made.

I have come across transactions where valuables such as cars, Electronic gadgets and others have been taken in lieu of cash for land purchases. This may be very contentious if such transactions become subject of litigations. The burden of proof is usually heavier on the buyer in circumstances like these. It is a better practice to value such valuable assets in financial terms and record such as cash paid. This puts the buyer in some safe zone. I was involved in a land issue in Benin City, Edo state where a young man that resides in one of the European countries sent two Mercedes cars to a land seller in exchange for four plots of land somewhere before the Bye-pass axis of Benin. The land seller promptly gave one of the cars to a concubine that resides some where in Ekpoma, about an hour away from the state capital while he painted the town red second one. A few months down the line, while he was driving back from a social gathering, apparently drunk to stupor, he was involved in a crash with the car. He escaped with his whiskers while the car was totally wrecked. He immediately requested his concubine to return the other one to him in the main time while he makes plans for another car as the one he crashed with was beyond repairs. The lady declined and clearly told him that the car was his settlement for a relationship she had invested the better part of her life into. Out of frustration, our dear land seller picked his phone and called the land buyer in Europe, narrated his ordeal and requested for another car in exchange for more land. My client declined and told him he was not in a position to do that the land he already bought from him was sufficient for his building plan. Irked by this refusal, the chief descended on the parcel of land and yanked of two plots from the four. When all entreaties to persuade him to let go off the land failed, we approached the court to enforce the right of my client. But for some gracious experience that eventually prevailed and subsequently led to a withdrawal of the case and an out-of-court settlement, it surely was going to be an uphill legal task. At the point of exchanging the cars, no value was placed on it. The chief cleverly claimed in his defense through his Counsel that the cars were part settlement as the buyer was expected to make additional cash payment which he had to wave when it was clear. This is what happens when land matters are inappropriately of non-professionally contracted.

The seventh step in acquiring traditional lands is Securing the purchased land. A lot of buyers have had series of heart ache as a result of their neglect for this option. No matter how much you pay for a land, without a basic Title to the land, you are living on borrowed terms. Once you have made payment, you must promptly embark on formaling your titles to the land. Be informed that family receipt is not sufficient claim to land. This is only a proof of your payment for same and one of your requirements to process your title. You must do all possible to ensure all required titles from registered survey to

One other major step you can take is securing your lands from poachers and land grabber is fencing. This is capable of deterring the notorious land-grabbers. However, this could be a major cost issue mostly if such land runs into several Acres or Hectares. Suffice to say too that some dare-devil ‘omon’ onile’ may not find this deterring enough to inhibit their illicit activities. We have instances where they pulled down fences, and too over such lands and sold with impunity. However, in smaller lands, it may well be a panacea. Take note that the final solution is to urgently perfect titles to such lands. Once this is done, the law is there to protect you from grabbers, trespassers and poachers.

The seventh step could be layouts and delineations. For huge or massive lands. It could also be a wise decision to delineate with roads and other clear demarcation signs into smaller units that make the land look as if it has been sold out to final users and possession has been taken. A major Estate developer told me this has worked for him like magic. It has been discovered that large lands left undeveloped for a long period of time become susceptible to the nefarious activities of the land grabbers. They are wont to be quick at descending on such lands. The CEO of this Estate Developers firm told me he had lost huge lands to these notorious grabbers and at some point he had his hands filled with court cases that were intended to help him recover some of these lands. It looked as if some of these cases were going to last forever, time consuming, costly, distracting and very frustrating till devised this strategy of dismantling large undeveloped pieces of lands to plots and acres with paths, roads and drainages. He said they get discouraged by such activities as they were very ary at moving into such lands. This is potent, cheap, effective and capable of saving buyer the harrowing experience of fighting battles of recovery.

One trick mostly employed by some of these unscrupulous elements among the traditional land owners is to come up with the 5th columnist element. A section of the family will sell the family land to the unsuspecting buyer. Sometime down the line, they will, through a 5th columnist move into the land with a claim that the selling party did not have the blessing of the family to buy, therefore, the transaction was void and of no effect. They will throw the buyer into a state of panic. This will usually lead into some further offer from the adversaries who in most cases will be asking for an amount higher than what was collected by the selling party. They do this to discourage the buyer. When the buyer proves incapable to stand their antics, they will disposes him of such land and move on to look for the next prey. In our next edition, I will expose some of their further antics and the possible ways to counter those smart moves.

   

Akhigbe Dominic