Let me start this post by saying a big thank you for your mails- enquiries and comments; they were most encouraging.
In this issue, I have found it necessary that you should read this before you do anything concerning real estate investing on your own, except you want to burn your fingers first.
It is no news that man’s basic necessities of life remain food, shelter and clothing, hence the innate yearning for these things by all of us. To own the roof over our head has remained one of the most sought-after and desired dream of most individual whether immediately possible or otherwise.
Sad to say, for some it will always remain a dream, and for others even when they can economically afford to realize this dream, it won’t happen. No thanks to the tricks and practices of land speculators/Omo-Oniles and others in the field, especially in the city of
Lagos.
A lot of people- some you know and others you don’t, have invested money in real estate and live to tell sorry stories of how they either were defrauded or their properties sold off before they could commence any construction on the parcel of land. It is altogether not surprising that even corporate bodies are not left out as would be seen in the accounts related below.
Are there lessons to learn? Oh! Sure, quite a handful. And as I often would say, the first rule of buying land especially in places like Lagos,
Port-Harcourt, Benin, e.t.c is to trust absolutely no one and to remain relentless in your search for the truth and authority of ownership. This does not guarantee not being duped, but it will amongst other things reduce the propensity for being defrauded.
When a colleague of Tolu Adegbayi* walked into the office with the news that a teacher colleague of her mum who is a member of the Nigerian Union of Teachers knew someone who had helped the teachers’ union purchase large expanse of land at Mowe/Ibafo and he could also help anybody who was interested get land. It sounded like good news from heaven to Bayo, Harry and Gbemi. Of course, Tolu was the first on the list.
“I can’t tell you how elated I was at the news, because for me, the issue of trust was immediately resolved.” Recalls Tolu.
Meetings were set up with the Omo-Oniles to buy two acres- one for Tolu and his colleagues in the office, the other one for a pastor friend of his. Little did they know they were playing into the hand of dupes.
“Everything went on very smoothly till after we made the first installment –my colleagues and I on one side and my pastor friend on the other parted with N360,000 each. We wanted to do something on the land before paying the rest – we just wanted to play safe and smart. Thank God we did”.
After they made payments and even going as far as asking the family to write the name of military organization in a bid to discourage any attempt at being dupds, troubles still ensued.
“Trouble actually started when we decided to clear the land, we got a surveyor to survey the place. The workers were stopped and we were called to a meeting. In fact the elderly man (Baba Deolu) that had been dealing with us from the first day was very upset – saying that our actions would make the family feel he had collected the full payment from us without the knowledge of others, since we hadn’t completed payment we had no right to start clearing the property.
We explained our motive to him, but he wouldn’t buy it; instead we were told to come back for another meeting. Apart from this meeting, nobody showed up again for subsequent meetings that we initiated. We had earlier dealt with three people- an estate agent who brokered the transaction, the family representative and another Youngman.
It was when someone else intimated us that he knew the original buyers of the property that we suspected we might have been duped.
I spear – headed the matter being taken to a police station – in fact the DPO of the first station – the Ibafo Central police Station that we originally took the matter to was very prejudiced. We made no head way until we transferred it to Mowe and involved some military personnel.
After about three months of going back and forth, and several detentions of Baba Deolu and the others, the sum of N400, 000 was later returned to us in bits and pieces. But not without the Baba confessing that he was lured into the deal by the younger ones knowing full-well that his family had truly sold the land to someone else.
I can not tell you how disappointed I, particularly felt – that a man of seventy – plus would disdain the respect of his years and the dignity he is supposed to have simply because of money.
Another story is that of a bank manager of one of the new generation banks
Tope Olatunbosun has always dreamt of having her own place, so when a corporate customer of her bank came up with a real estate scheme, she could buy into. To her it was an answered prayer. The terms were agreeable and above all else it solved the Omo – onile issue she was bent on avoiding, or so she thought until……
“Everything actually looked okay especially because the developer’s company was a customer of my bank- (in fact, she was the account officer to the company as well as the branch manager). In fact too many things made it look good and okay – here was an honorable member of the Nigeria lower house ( the house of Assembly), he was also someone I had regular interface with as it pertained to the company’s account, So nothing looked out of place. I even went as far as inviting some of my friends to buy into the scheme.” Says Tope with a sour look. She did not mind that it was far-away Port-Harcourt because she was comfortable with the man behind the project.
The proposed estate was to have detached building as well as a couple of apartment buildings with 8nos of flats of varying room numbers. The form for application was N 10, 000 while a down payment of N 120,000 was to be made. Thereafter the estate would be built and after delivery, payments in three installment of the balance of N 600,000 would be made.
“I had made the payment for the form and also the down payment. I was not even perturbed when I heard nothing from them for about three months – not until my friends started wondering what was up. All of a sudden, phone calls to the honourable weren’t been picked up anymore. Messages from his office were either that he is out of town or not available. That was in 2003: till date I have not heard from him, neither have I set my eyes on him. What made it more pathetic was the fact that this did not even happen in
Lagos, it was in Port – Harcourt.”
To Tope, such things were limited to
Lagos and Omo – oniles, NOT corporate bodies.
“I hate to think I was duped, but all the signs are apparently there. I can understand that things probably did not go as anticipated but then again, wouldn’t it have been better and more honourable if we were at least kept abreast of happenings. I have been moved back to
Lagos for a while now, so I really haven’t had time to think about it and decide what to do.” She concludes.
While it looked like these antics perpetrated by Omo-Oniles and owners of landed properties are limited to individual buyers, the truth is that it is not. Institutions and corporate organizations also get duped as depicted in this story which was recorded in the national daily- The Punch several months ago.
“A very different scenario of power – play is being acted out leaving the Assemblies of God church in
Rivers State trying to understand exactly what happened to their investments. A large parcel of land belonging to the Assemblies of God in Port-Harcourt has been forcefully taken over by a senator from
Imo State in the last political dispensation of Ex-President Olusegun Obasanjo.
The senator was said to have bought the land from a one-time presidential aspirant in the state and a titled chief in
Bayelsa State without a clear perception of its true ownership.
Measuring 6,453 sq. m2, the property was allegedly sold by the then Governor-General of Nigeria to the Board of Trustees of the church in 1947 with a 75 year lease subject to renewal.
The church built a house on the property for her missionaries and later leased the property to Mobil Oil Producing Nig Ltd in 1972 after the missionaries left. The same property was leased to the aspirant who later sold it in 1987 after the lease with Mobil expired.
In 1990, unknown to the church, the former aspirant with the help of corrupt officials of the
Rivers State Land Registry changed the ownership to a company known as PKJ Construction.
The company owned by the senator in-turn sold the property to another company owned by the senator and got a C of O marked RSL/34677/T for a 99year period effective from January 1, 1998.”
These are just a few of the many instances where people have bought properties and lost it. Somebody once asked me what the moral of this article is, and all I could answer is to reiterate what the rules are.
1) Perhaps the most important Trust no one. The crux of this is that friends and family who may introduce you to a property may be as uninformed about the true state of things as you. So make sure you find out as much as you can about any offer. Use a lawyer, or a real estate consultant.
2) Again the fact that a person is elderly does not mean he can not be fraudulent. Age is not a barrier, don’t be deceived.
3) Investigate as much as you can before you part with your money. At times, all the documentations might be in order yet person selling on behalf of the family might not be authorized.
4) In matters like this BUYERS BEWARE! You can not be too careful and it is better to lose a N50,000 in findings/investigations than to be duped of some lump sum.5) When you buy land, take full possession in terms of documents and physically.6) Please remember that you can never be too careful in real estate transactions.
Learn to ask for help when drowning also. Next edition, I promise to share the tell tale signs of a property under dispute or fraudulently offered.
This space is not for sale, beware of ………..
See you next edition.
*Note that while the experiences shared are real and factual, the names
of the people involved have been changed to protect their identity
