Nigeria Content Online

Certificate of
Occupancy alias C of O is a title document issued by the authorised
government signifying its consent to ownership of land by the occupant
of the land. C of O is not only the recognised/ accepted title
document. Deed of Assignment, Deed of Transfer and Purchase Receipts
Agreement are recognised title documents upon registration.

Every instrument
affecting land must be registered with the Registrar of Title. An
instrument is any document affecting land whereby one part confers,
transfer, limits, charges or extinguished in favour of another party
any right or title to, or interest in land, and includes a certificate
of purchase and power of attorney under which any instrument may be
executed, but does not include a Will.

An instrument duly
registered with the Land’s Registry becomes a public document and
searches can be made at all reasonable times in the register book in
which upon an application, a certified true copy can be obtained.

Registration constitutes notice to the whole world of the title or interest the registered instrument conveys.

A prospective
creditor or purchaser of a property must be prudent to avoid buying a
law suit. It connotes that a reasonable creditor or purchaser must
conduct a search at the Land Registry. A search at the Land Registry
should be propped up with further investigation that should include
site inspection. Apart from the searches at Land Registry, it is
advisable to conduct search at the Surveyor General’s Office to
ascertain the status of the property.

However in practice
these days, there are indications that Title documents are cloned
(forged) and used as collateral without the owner’s consent. It has
become the trade of chronic debtor to use cloned title documents as
collateral. An unsuspecting creditor will accept a cloned Title
documents assuming the presenter to be the owner and later encounter
problem either at investigation stage or enforcement stage. These
chronic debtors have even stepped up their game by ensuring that cloned
documents are reduplicated and substituted for the original at Land’s
Registry; please do not ask me how! We conducted a search on a property
lately and the search report confirmed the presenter as the owner. Our
further investigation at the Surveyor General’s office showed
inconsistency. We decided to follow the information we received at the
Surveyor General’s Office that later revealed the search report and
Title document from Land Registry was cloned.

While I am not
pointing fingers, Title documents owners must ensure the safe custody
of their legal documents at all times. These documents when in the
hands of wrong persons can be used to the detriments of its owners.
Owners of Title documents should, once in a while, conduct searches
too! This will save any unforeseeable embarrassment in future.

I implore the Lands Directorate to please investigate the incessant cloning of Title documents and ensure its extinction.