Property buyers especially in Lekki, Elegushi, Agungi, Ajah, the Eti-Osa Environs and parts of Ibeju Lekki should be very wary before buying a property that has a Governor’s Consent because most of these Governor's Consents have been questionably acquired at the land registry.

This is because falsified and forged survey plans have been presented by the Owners to the land registry to register. Due to the lax and porous process of obtaining a Governor’s consent at the land registry, dubious owners have perfected the art of presenting forged survey plans that are outside the original location of the land or outside the excision for confirmation.

These unscrupulous Owners employ very Deceitful surveyors that are fully aware the land has issues.

These land could either be a committed, outside the excision, outside the original location of the land by a wide margin, inside a very dangerous location or a location that would never be approved by the government.

 

The Owner of the land would now convince the Surveyor to draw up a Survey plan showing the land is located inside the excision or has no issues.  When the survey plan is submitted at the land registry for registration, the surveyor general would use the fabricated coordinates on the survey plan to determine whether the land is good or not.

 

 

Example of a Dubious survey plan that was deliberately falsified and Forged. This is the true position of the land. The land is almost outside the excision but a dubious surveyor would shift the land into the excision and lie to the world that the land is genuine and free from acquisition meanwhile a small fraction of the land is inside the excision survey plan. These criminal surveyors and their owners really don't rate us

The normal process ought to be the staffs at the surveyor general’s office should go to the exact Land site land to confirm whether the coordinates on the survey plan matches the coordinates picked on the land but 95% of the time, these staffs at the Surveyor General’s office just sit down in their office to chart the survey using the dubious coordinates on the fraudulent survey to give it a clean bill of health.

When the Governors Consent is finally out, the Owner immediate puts the property up for sale at a huge price and markets it as a fantastic property with an additional advantage that the land has a Governor’s Consent.

Once a prospective buyer hears the property has a Governor’s Consent, he gets excited and purchases the property without conducting a proper verification of the Governor’s Consent. The best he does is to engage a lawyer to conduct a search at the Land registry only to confirm if the Governor’s Consent exists or not. Once the lawyer sees it has been registered, the buyer immediately pays for the property and is glad he has bought a very sound property but unknown to him, he has been severely duped because he is in possession of a fraudulently obtained Governor’s Consent.

The position of the law is that a Governor’s consent is not an automatic right of title if it has been found to be obtained fraudulently whether it’s your fault, the sellers fault or the government’s fault.

Once it is found to be defective, IT WOULD BE REVOKED, WITHDRAWN AND CANCELLED. No amount of ‘’ I DID NOT KNOW’ or “I WAS MISLED” would change the governor’s mind. The property would end up being a waste and a worthless piece of land that you must vacate from. If a building has been constructed on it, it would be demolished without any form of compensation.

This development has led to so many problems that have devastated the dreams of many property owners to own Governor Consent issued properties. The emotional and financial pain when they discover they have been duped or sold a dubious property with a fake Governor’s Consent title cannot be quantified.

CASE STUDY

Recently a client who was interested in purchasing a property at Abijo village Ibeju lekki contacted me to conduct a search on a property she was interested in buying. The Seller told her that the property had a Governor’s consent and was registered in 2016.

She was very excited to purchase the property because she has seen photocopies of the governor’s consent. I told her to calm her nerves for my team to investigate it properly to know if the Consent was genuine or not.

The moment the Seller heard I wanted to investigate his property with a Consent he became very abusive and hostile to me. Not perturbed about his manner and approach we commenced our investigation and found out that the property was truly registered at the Land Registry but when we conducted a site inspection, we discovered a huge misrepresentation of facts and the location of the land.

According to the Governors consent coordinates on the survey, the land was inside the Abijo village excision but when we cross-checked it, the land was far away from the Abijo Village excision and located in a committed area outside the Abijo excision.

Another Example of a Dubious survey plan that was deliberately falsified. See the true position of the land. The land is almost outside the survey plan but a crooked surveyor would move the land into the survey plan so that it can be registered at the land registry as genuine and free from acquisition meanwhile half of the land is partly inside the survey plan and partly outside the survey plan. These unscrupulous surveyors and the Sellers take Nigerians for granted....Walahi!

This simply means the Governors consent that the Seller is parading around to unsuspecting buyers is worthless, dishonest, fraudulent and forbidden because the Seller obtained the Consent using a dubious survey plan.

The Seller’s surveyor copied a good survey plan in that area to replicate the survey plan for the seller so as to deceive buyers. Everything the Seller has done amounts to fraud to mislead, deceive and misrepresent fiction as facts thereby leaving the buyer in pains and discomfort.

The bottom line here is that Buyers should be very careful before they hastily rush to purchase a property with Governor’s consent. They must do a detailed background check on it before a clean bill of health is given to buy unless they would lose millions of Naira they would never get back.

Verify that land before buying it. Don’t be lured into buying properties with fake documents. Many have lost their entire life savings due lack of a proper land verification. Getting a land verification exercise at the time of purchase can save you from a lifetime tragedy. Be wise!