Nigeria Property: 07/09/13

Tuesday, July 9, 2013

The Growing Con In Nigerian Real Estate - The Legitimate Dilemmas - Properties

I left Nigeria to London in my very young age where I successfully studied law in among the top London University and continued to do Bar Vocational Course (BVC). Having spent so several years in London I believed it wise to return to my country (Nigeria) to be in down with my children to ensure that my children will know their root very well.

In order to continue my practice, Used to do my law school in Nigeria and started my practice as a Barrister & Solicitor Advocate of Nigeria.

Among other areas of speciality, conveyancing, Property Sales and Development is one of our area of expertise and through this experience I believed it wise to create this article to warn other Nigerians both local and Overseas in what they have to know before buying or selling properties in Nigeria.

Unfortunately, I will not prefer to overwhelm you with a lot of information, however, if you should be of any concern, do call me at appropriate time; I may well be more than pleased to answer your questions.

In doing so, I will require to to generally share some personal and professional experiences with buying, selling, letting or renting properties in Nigeria. Things are very tough now making some individuals to become ‘fake'estate agents being an umbrella to commit fraud.

I need to honestly say there are good and genuine estate agents and surveyors in Nigeria however the bad agents will be the once destroying the estate agents'business in Nigeria. The question is how can we dictate a fake estate agent?

To slice the story short, I will share only few experiences and will not name the concerned agents and the so-called surveyor in this article.

In 2013, a very reputable client instructed us to purchase land for property development. We sighted the first document for the land as well as the plan. The issuing is how to understand the document is real or clone. Appropriate searches were conducted through AMAC, the name on the AMAC record clearly match the seller's name in the document. However, reading the program, everything did not seem directly to us. To ensure that our client will not be at an increased risk with the proposed property purchase, we carried out an additional and third surveyor. It transpired that the land demonstrated to us was not the particular land on the program making the sale illegal and fraudulent.

Obviously, the agent and his surveyor did not realise my profession and level experience in Nigerian real-estate, but seeing me with another foreign buyer, their main motive was to commit fraud. I monitored them very closely until their plan was uncovered through evidence.

There are plenty of stories to share with, however in order to not scare you, it's necessary to hold out a suitable due diligence through reputable law chambers or other trusted estate agents.

It can also be necessary to ask for other identity of owner to be able to eliminate fraud. Through legal cases, there have been many cases where people sold land that belonged to someone else. The vendor believing that he/she had acquired a legal and equitable fascination with Land would start an immediate property development on the land simply to notice at a later stage that the land was fraudulently sold to him/her. Consequently, two innocent people would end up in a very expensive litigation to find out the rightful owner of the land. This really is very awful and something you've got to avoid when possible by taking a suitable due diligence.

Please make sure you instruct your own surveyor and not only the seller's surveyor.

If you're in doubt concerning this please contact me for proper estate agents'referrals or assistance in buying, selling, letting, managing or renting accommodation in Nigeria. Once proper steps are taken to avoid this mess, you will surely be happy to purchase Nigerian Real Estate.

I've received tens of thousands of awful stories from so many individuals and thought it wise to create a write-up warning people to hold out appropriate due diligence before committing their hard earned money. In this way, you is going to be be confident that your investment is safe! Nigerian Real Estate is good if you handle the right individuals or lawyers.

For questions or answers please contact me on:

Conversation with a real estate millionaire In Nigeria

We've experienced several principles on real estate investments and answered several questions and enquiries from ardent readers with this column. But it may be much more instructive to share one of several conversations that I have experienced with a real estate millionaire that has helped me tremendously.

I have found the truth of the word that the ounce of example is worth a pound of precepts. Permit me to extract the essential principles of this particular conversation and to safeguard the privacy with this individual who'd also prefer his name not to be mentioned.

Rule 1: Have an excellent source of income. This specific real estate investor started several years ago just a couple of years after the independence of Nigeria by exporting certain agricultural produce. He poured himself into building this business and was later joined by a few other partners. The business enterprise flourished and provided him with the normal stream of income with which he started investing in real estate.

This real estate millionaire believes in work and entrepreneurship. He believes that most of the youths of today will do better if they figure out how to walk before wanting to fly. He believes that if you're willing to serve others faithfully within their business, you'll do wonderfully well in yours once you eventually start.

The lesson for people in that is that real estate investment requires seed capital and to possess those initial seed capital you must have earning power, you must have a means of income. You can't set up a great structure without a solid foundation. So,for several could be investors, first learn a skill or profession that'll allow you to get a job or begin a business as possible grow and that'll give you regular income.

Rule 2: Start saving and start investing in real estate in your own little way. Our real estate millionaire started by buying land in a location that has been a “jungle''but has become one of many commercial nerve centres of Lagos. He stated so it was not easy buying some of these properties then.He said he made buying real estate one of his true pastimes.

He did not start buying properties in the high brow areas of that time period while he could not afford them. In accordance with him, start what your location is and with that which you have. If all you could are able is a parcel of land in the outskirt of town by all means start there rather than not starting at all.

Rule 3: Its good to create and rent. This real estate millionaire began to create a number of his properties with desire to of letting them. Fortunately for him, as time continued ,he started to obtain understanding of construction and building development. This accelerated his building projects and his ability to communicate with builders and workmen saved him significant costs. He also started initially to allow buildings to tenants to generate income. As at today, his annual rental income is in millions of naira.

The lesson for aspiring real estate investors is to target on income-generating assets. When you have sorted out the issue of where you reside, you ought to continue building for others to rent from you and pay to you. Some real estate investors have an objective to create a specific number of houses using areas over a period of time using current and projected rent as a basis for planning.

This strategy can also be a form of retirement planning since rental income from such properties provide passive cash flow. Like our real estate millionaire, who is now an elderly man, but does not need to work to be able to pay for his cost of living.

Rule 4: In the event that you can't develop some properties by yourself, let them have to reliable developers.This real estate millionaire had some properties he could not afford to produce on his own as a result of multiple projects he was involved in. He gave a number of such properties to carefully selected developers he gave long leases to. Many of such properties have since reverted to his control and are actually giving him fantastic returns. In his thinking, it was better to include value to the land or allow someone else to include value to the land. As long as the properties aren't sold they'd eventually revert back to him or his beneficiaries.

Rule 5: once you do sell, reinvest all or part of the income in real estate. This real estate investor rarely sells his properties but when he does, he sometimes buys another property or uses the income to include value to a different property. He is comfortable and modest at the same time. He often has the next project or investment in sight before concluding the offer to sell.

He believes in moving his funds to raised and better real estate locations that provides in better rental income. As at today, a conservative estimate of his property assets is over N2billion.He started small,built his estate gradually but strategically and now he is reaping the reward.

Some locations suddenly became prime locations and transformed the value of his investment. His life proves that should you cast your bread on many waters you will find it and more someday or somewhere you least expect