The truth about land scams

The rate of land scams in Lagos, Ogun, Port Harcourt and Abuja is getting extremely alarming and buyers these days are so weary of falling victim to Evil people parading as Land owners but in reality the land they claim to own and intend to sell belongs to somebody else.

Property buyers are so confused as to the type of property they intend to purchase because the system is so rotten coupled with the problems that accompany living in a rented apartment . Buyers have become extremely desperate to own lands not minding the cost, location or documentation issues that might arise thereby making these Land fraudsters get  bolder to defraud people.

It now begs the question what kind of land is better to buy? An omonile land or buying into an Estate. Both of them have their own advantages and quirks but I would try my best to differentiate them to the best of my knowledge :

Buying an Omoonile Land ( Pros):

Pros of Buying into an Omonile Land

1. They are everywhere and cater for all sizes, location, cost and amenities.

2. You can negotiate the cost of the land at your own time and pace.

3. You have a choice of selecting the type of land you want and position.

4. In most situations, you can deal with the original seller directly without third parties influencing your decisions.

5. You have direct access to the documents most of the time to conduct due diligence on it

6. You can easily confirm the status of the land when you conduct due diligence on it to help you decide whether you should buy or not.

7. You can easily view or locate the land you intend to buy without any bottle necks or conditions

8. You can conduct the transaction in a day, sign all the contracts in a day and take possession of that land the same day.

9. You don’t have to worry about whether the land is under a mortgage or when your documents would be ready.

10. You can start building immediately you pay for the land without waiting for anybody to dictate to you once payments have been settled and if something bad happens to your land, you’re most likely going to be compensated or relocated to another place.

Buying an Omoonile Land ( Cons):

Cons of Buying into an Omonile Land ( Pic Credit: Bayo Olupohunda)

1. Buying an Omonile land simply means YOU ARE TREADING A THIN LINE IF YOU DO NOT INVESTIGATE TRUE OWNERSHIP

2. Omonile Lands are owned by either Families or people who bought lands from the families. Either way, till you complete your house, you must have a relationship with these families good or bad till the very end.

3. Most omonile lands have one issue or the other associated with them such as land dispute cases, family dispute cases, resale of another person’s land, buying lands that belong to the government etc hence the need to conduct due diligence on them before you buy.

4. You pay for everything such as your own survey fees, legal fees, agency fees, omonile signing fees, foundation fees, roofing fees, drainage, Nepa etc.

5. Even when you do everything right such as conducting due diligence, buying from the right person and paying all the necessary fees, you still have to build a fence to ward off criminals and trespassers from stealing your land.

6. Until you complete your house you must always be vigilant to check on your land. Any form of complacency or negligence would only lead to criminals reselling your land

7. You would have to put up with annoying agents throughout the Inspection and negotiating experience

8. Buying an Omonile Land means you have to be tough and take no nonsense unless these miscreants would rob you off your land.

Pros of Buying a Real Estate Developer Land

Buying into a Real estate Developers site

1. You know who you are buying from and most of them are registered real estate companies

2. The Lands are usually in an enclosed environment so you would be living with people with like minds

3. The estates have proposed amenities so you don’t have to run around looking for blocks to build your fence, provide electricity, roads, drainage etc

4. Most estates have a layout that have it in mind to provide parks, schools, hospitals etc

5. Buying from a real estate company means you don’t have to deal with omoniles to pay any sort of fees to them.

6. All documentations are usually done by the Real estate company in favour of the buyer

7. They provide installment payment plans for those who cannot afford to pay the full sum at once

Cons of Buying a Real Estate Developer Land

Cons of Buying into a Real estate Developers site. Most of the time you might just be buying into a glorified sign board without any future or hope of it turning into an estate tomorrow

1. Most of them don’t have certified papers from the government and you would always hear them saying  "our documents or papers are under processing". When you end up investigating the so called documents under processing it turns out most of the time to be a lie.

2. Most people are usually swayed by the cheapness of the promo sales to attract buyers such as “ pay N50,000 every month for 2 years before you get the land” but in most cases it turns out to be a Ponzi pyramid scheme. I know of so many people who have paid for lands in some of these popular real estate companies but till date after 2/3 years, they have not being allocated any land, document or a refund of their money.

3. Most of the time, the lands promised at the beginning end turns out to be something else. When it is time to give you the land paid for, you end up regretting why you ventured into it in the first place.

4. Even after you make complete payment, most of them don’t allocate the land to you immediately. You could end up waiting for months or years before they attempt to allocate the lands for you. Taking immediate possession of these lands is very difficult and you have to fight them to make them give you possession.

5. Most of them take huge loans to acquire these lands they promote to subscribers to buy for cheap. The initial expectation from the Real estate company when they start marketing it is to sell all the lands within a record time frame but when disappointments set in and sales turn out to be slow, the lenders become hostile and everybody that bought into the real estate company becomes indebted to the Mortgaging company or bank. Your land could be sold off, revoked or mortgaged at anytime.

6. Naturally it shouldn’t take less than a week for a licensed surveyor to do a survey but with these real estate companies it could take weeks or months before you see the survey plan, deeds of assignment or Allocation Letter.

7. Most of them give subscribers very difficult contract of sales to handle and at the end of the day these subscribers sign their futures to pay huge service charges and development fees until they get tired of the estate.

8. Most of them lie that the estate has a C of O or Gazette when you want to purchase it to entice you to buy it. When you probe further, you realize they really don’t have the C of o they claimed and you are left on your own to procure all these papers as if you bought from Omoniles directly.

9. When the real estate company shows you the original plan of the estate it looks very enticing but along the line when they begin to sell, they scatter the whole plan and you are left with a disorganized estate to fend for yourself to get all the amenities you desire.

10. Finally most of them deceive people with huge fences and fancy catchy names of the estate to entice people to buy, by the time you get sucked into the payments, you will realize they have no valid document to show proof of ownership and they need your money to complete payments they promised the omoniles they originally bought it from.

Conclusion

Bottom-line both Omonile lands and real estate developers lands have their pros and cons and it depends on the buyer to make their choice wisely but what is not in doubt is that you must investigate them properly before you buy into any one so that you don’t end up being a victim and losing your hard earned Millions to crooks.

Click here if you don't want to be a victim of either an Omonile Land or fraudulent real estate developer, get in touch with us here and we would prevent you from losing your hard earned millions to crooks