Why the Land Use Act shapes every property purchase in Nigeria

The Land Use Act 1978 vests all land in each state in the Governor, to be held in trust and administered for the use and common benefit of Nigerians. What a private party holds is not absolute ownership in the way buyers often imagine, but a right of occupancy.

Almost everything buyers find strange about Nigerian conveyancing follows from that single principle.

The Act contemplates a statutory right of occupancy, granted by the Governor and typically associated with urban land, and a customary right of occupancy associated with land in non-urban areas and with local government administration.

A certificate of occupancy is the document evidencing a grant. It is evidence of the right — not, by itself, proof that everything behind it was regular.

Because the holder has a right of occupancy rather than absolute ownership, a transfer, mortgage or sublease of that right generally requires the Governor's consent. A transaction completed without the required consent may be ineffective to pass what the buyer believed they were buying.

This is the single most common defect in Nigerian property transactions, and it is a defect in title, not paperwork to be tidied later.

Search the relevant land registry rather than relying on documents handed over by the seller. Establish the root of title and how the seller came to hold it. Confirm whether consent was obtained for the transactions in that chain. Visit the land and ask who occupies it.

Where family or community land is involved, establish who is entitled to deal with it. A signature from someone without authority does not become good by being notarised.

The Act allows a right of occupancy to be revoked for overriding public interest, on the terms it sets out, with compensation provisions attached. Buyers should understand this exists rather than discover it later.