By Umar Shuaib
When people are allocated plots in Abuja they must strive towards its development. One risks revocation if he fails to develop, when infrastructure is provided to the neighbourhood. Unfortunately, many property developers were not directly allocated, but acquired lands more through financial transaction than direct allocation. Property developers must be very careful, otherwise they would buy an already revoked land, or fake or cloned or stolen title documents.
There are many land owners who’s Certificates of Occupancy were due for collection, but remain available at the land registry for many years, for reasons only known to the owners. Other reasons could be the demise of the owners, while the inheritors were either not aware of the existence of the land, or there are conflicts among the parties.
In any case, some bad eggs within the officials at the land registry would device ways to fraudulently collect these type of Certificates. Last year, copies of one of such stolen documents was circulated for sale. An interested buyer happened to know the owner of the Company and decided to contact him directly. The owner recognized that it was actually his land, but he knew that he was yet to collect the Certificate of Occupancy. He followed up and actually confirmed that an unknown person had already settled the outstanding bills and collected the title.
Further checks at the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC), revealed that the names of the Directors of the Company were already fraudulently changed. Commotion started at the CAC, it was learned that the staff involved got fired. Subsequently, in order to circumvent ongoing investigations which would certainly lead to a similar repercussion at the land registry, an anonymous person visited and handed over the original Certificate to the land owner and disappeared.
Prospective developers must conduct a search at the FCT Land Registry before sealing any land transaction. The search should also be extended to carrying out due diligence at the CAC, to get appropriate information on the history of the Company ownership. All these are necessary in order to avoid falling victim to a similar scam as narrated. Nevertheless, successful search is not enough to seal a deal if a cloned document is involved. It is very important to trace the plot’s ownerships history and directly confirm that it was the original owner that first disposed the land to other successive owners before reaching the last person transacting the business.
Another episode happened not too long ago. Some unfortunate off-takers, which include influential security officers lost their hard-earned savings to a very notorious, wayward and recalcitrant land grabber. His notoriety and obnoxious reputation notwithstanding, he enjoys the protection of the security while parading himself as a ‘property developer’. Over the years he acquired the temerity to challenge and insult the City management officers and the Chief Executive while on enforcement duties.
What the criminal does was to identify a plot in a choice location and produce a replica of the Certificate of Occupancy. That level of information can never be obtained if not with the connivance of the criminally minded land officers. Meanwhile the rightful owner would be holding his original document legally obtained. The counterfeited document, bearing the name of the rightful owner was used for the application and securing of building plans approval in line with the appropriate procedure.
As usual, the Development Control requested for the information on the submitted document from the Lands Department in order confirm the authenticity of submissions before granting approval. But, because the information contained in the document submitted were the same in the original land record, the ownership status was confirmed.
Perhaps, the victimized influential off-takers got carried away by the level of security cover the criminal element parades to assume that he was the genuine property developer and forgo any prior investigation before transferring huge amounts to him to build. Even if they have investigated, but limited their investigation to the AGIS, Lands, and Development Control Departments, they won’t discover the fraud. But if they had got the name on the allocation and reached out, the cat would have been let out of the bag, and they would have been saved from committing their hard-earned resources to the wayward land developer.
Trouble started when he commenced construction on site. When the rightful owner saw his land under construction, he quickly ran to the Control Department, and he was informed that it was him that applied and obtained the building plans approval, which he denied. Eventually, the approval was withdrawn and henceforth, the illegal development was removed. But not without ostentatious resistance from the audacious and shameless criminal aimed at impressing his victims to make them believe that he was still the rightful owner.
To be continued
