The Certificate of Occupancy on the seller's desk may be completely genuine. The person presenting it may have no legal right to sell the land it covers. Both things can be true at the same time, and in Nigeria's property market, they frequently are.
Document verification is not the bureaucratic stage of buying land. It is the actual investment decision. Everything else — the location, the price, the seller's track record, the agent's referral — is secondary to whether the documents are genuine, registered, and free of encumbrances. A plot in Ibeju-Lekki with clean documentation is a better investment than a plot in Lekki Phase 1 with a defective title. The document is the asset. The land is just land until the document says otherwise.
This article walks through the seven documents that must be verified in every Nigerian land transaction, what each one is, what it protects against, and exactly how to confirm it is genuine.
Before the list: what verification actually means
Possessing a document is not the same as verifying it. Fraudsters operating across Lagos, Abuja, Port Harcourt, and Asaba produce convincing versions of every document on this list as a matter of routine. Verification does not mean examining what the seller provides. It means independently confirming, through official government registries and physical site visits, that what the seller has provided matches what the government records show.
This requires a property lawyer and a registered surveyor. It requires four to six weeks. It requires paying official search fees. Any transaction that cannot accommodate this timeline deserves serious scrutiny before it proceeds.
Document One: Certificate of Occupancy
The C of O is the root document of all legitimate title in Nigeria. Issued by the state government under the Land Use Act of 1978, it grants the holder a statutory right of occupancy over a defined piece of land for up to ninety-nine years. In Lagos, C of Os are issued through the Ministry of Lands. In Abuja, through the Federal Capital Territory Administration. In Rivers State, through the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development in Port Harcourt.
What it contains: the name of the original holder, the file number assigned by the land registry, the size and location of the land, the permitted use, the date of issue, and the signature and seal of the issuing authority.
How to verify it: your lawyer physically attends the land registry and searches against the file number. The search confirms the number exists, that the name matches the seller, that the property description matches what is being sold, and that no endorsements record a mortgage, court order, or government notice against the title.
The original must be presented. A seller who can only produce a certified true copy and claims the original is misplaced or held elsewhere has given an explanation worth interrogating carefully before the transaction advances.
Document Two: Deed of Assignment
When land changes hands after the original government grant, the transaction is recorded in a Deed of Assignment. This transfers the seller's right of occupancy to the buyer. If the land being purchased has ever been sold before, the seller must produce the deed showing how they acquired it.
What it contains: the names of both parties, the property description, the consideration paid, the transaction date, and the signatures of both parties and their witnesses.
How to verify it: your lawyer traces the complete chain of assignment from the original C of O holder to the current seller. Every link in that chain must be documented. Properties in Gwarinpa, Jabi, and Lokogoma in Abuja that have changed hands multiple times over twenty years will have several deeds. Each one must be accounted for.
A Deed of Assignment without Governor's Consent is legally incomplete. Purchasing on the basis of an unconsented deed is purchasing a title that may not hold under challenge.
Document Three: Governor's Consent
This is the requirement most buyers underestimate and most fraudsters exploit. Under Section 22 of the Land Use Act, no transfer of land held under a C of O is legally complete without the express consent of the state governor. This is not administrative formality. It is a statutory validity requirement without which the transfer simply does not exist in law.
The consent must be present for every prior transfer in the chain, not only for the buyer's own purchase. A transfer that happened in Ikeja GRA in 2009 without Governor's Consent creates a title defect that runs forward through every subsequent transaction, including the one currently under discussion. Your lawyer searches the registry for evidence of consent on each prior transfer. In Lagos, the Lagos Land Information System assists this. In Abuja, the FCTA maintains its own records.
A missing consent anywhere in the chain is a title defect that a third party can use to challenge ownership after money has been paid and the transaction is complete.
Document Four: Survey Plan
A survey plan defines the physical land. Without a verified survey plan, a buyer does not know with legal precision what parcel they are purchasing, where its boundaries sit, or whether it encroaches on a neighbouring property or a government corridor.
What it contains: the name and registration number of the surveyor who prepared it, the survey date, the coordinates of the boundary pillars, the land area in square metres or hectares, the beacon numbers, and a north-pointing orientation diagram showing the land's position relative to adjacent properties.
How to verify it: engage an independent registered surveyor, entirely separate from whoever prepared the seller's plan, to physically visit the land. This surveyor takes GPS coordinates, locates the boundary pillars, measures the area, and confirms the plan matches the actual land on the ground. For land in emerging corridors like Sangotedo, Bogije, and Awoyaya on the Lagos mainland, boundary disputes are common precisely because multiple developers have been selling adjacent parcels with overlapping surveys.
In Lagos specifically, the survey plan must be charted at the Office of the Surveyor General and cleared against government acquisition records, drainage corridors, and road setbacks. An uncharted survey plan has not been through this process and is an incomplete document regardless of how professionally it presents.
Document Five: Gazette Notice or Registered Family Deed
A significant portion of land in Lagos, Ogun State, Enugu, and other southern states is held under customary tenure by original landholding families, without individual C of Os yet issued over it. This land is transacted through gazette notices and family deeds.
A gazette notice is an official government publication releasing specific land from government acquisition status back to the original community. Land that has been excised has been through this process formally. Land that has not been excised may still technically belong to the government regardless of what a private seller presents.
Your lawyer must locate the relevant gazette publication and confirm the specific parcel falls within the excised area as described in it. For family deed transactions covering land in communities around Ibeju-Lekki, Epe, and the Ogun corridor, your lawyer must investigate the customary rules of the selling community, confirm the sellers are authorised representatives with genuine authority, and confirm that all required family members have consented. A family deed signed by one member who lacks authority to bind the wider family has no legal force and the resulting transaction is void.
Document Six: Tax Clearance and Land Use Charge Receipts
Outstanding Land Use Charge does not disappear when a property changes hands. In Lagos it is administered by the Lagos State Internal Revenue Service and constitutes a charge on the property itself, not merely a personal debt of the seller. The moment the transaction completes, an unchecked outstanding balance becomes the buyer's liability.
Your lawyer requests the seller's tax clearance certificate and all Land Use Charge receipts from the date they acquired the property to the present. For properties in Magodo, Omole, or Ikeja GRA that have been held for fifteen or twenty years, outstanding charges can be significant. Any outstanding balance must be an explicit transaction term: either settled by the seller before completion with receipts produced as part of the closing documentation, or deducted from the purchase price with the buyer accepting documented responsibility for clearing it.
Document Seven: Development Permit and Building Approval
This document applies to built property. If you are buying bare land in Eleko, Lekki Phase 2, or Nbora in Abuja, you move past it. If anything with a structure sits on the land, a development permit is mandatory.
A development permit confirms the building was constructed with planning authority approval and in accordance with the approved plans. A building without one may be an illegal structure, exposing the owner to demolition orders, fines, and the inability to complete subsequent government processes related to the property.
In Lagos, permits are issued by the Lagos State Physical Planning Authority. In Abuja by the FCDA Department of Development Control. In Rivers State by the Port Harcourt City Local Government Authority and the Rivers State Government. For off-plan purchases in any estate development, the developer must demonstrate that the master permit covers the entire estate and that the specific unit falls within it.
All seven documents — ranked by verification priority
The verification sequence from day one to completion
What each check costs
The four rules that admit no exception
Never pay a non-refundable deposit before all seven documents have been verified. A small refundable holding deposit held by your own lawyer while verification proceeds is acceptable. Non-refundable payment before verification is payment made on trust rather than evidence.
Never use a lawyer recommended by the seller or the selling agent. Their professional obligation runs to whoever retained them. Your lawyer must be retained solely by you and compensated solely by you.
Never accept photocopies as originals. Every document on this list must be presented in original form for verification against official records.
Never complete a transaction faster than the verification process requires. A seller creating urgency about another buyer, a closing deadline, or an expiring price is creating pressure designed to prevent verification. Legitimate sellers with clean titles are not harmed by four to six weeks of independent checking.
Want to learn everything about investing in Nigerian real estate? Enrol in the Nigerian Property Investor's Masterclass here: https://ezemaximus.com/courses/nigerian-property-investors-masterclass
Browse our curated properties you can buy into here: https://ezemaximus.com/properties
Book a 1-on-1 clarity session with Max here: https://ezemaximus.com/coaching
Eze Maximus is a Nigerian real estate professional with nine years of market experience and over four billion naira in closed transactions. He trains investors and realtors through the Eze Maximus platform, including the Nigerian Property Investor's Masterclass.
