How To Avoid Land Grabbers (Omo-Onile) Issue
One of the major challenges most investors face in Nigeria is the issue of Land Grabbers popularly known as “Omo Onile” in the Southwest region of the country. Most of the fraudulent acts on properties are traced to them.
Basically, Omo Oniles are the legal and lawful owners of a given piece of land or the indigenous landowners in a given community. They are traditionally descendants of the native owners of the land. They sell and usually feed on proceeds from land sales. Unfortunately for them, the inherited land has a limit and once they finish selling them, they have nothing left to sell.
So, in order not to run out of money, many become being scammers and engage in common practices such as selling the same piece of land to various buyers and infringing on land acquired legitimately by others.
In other cases, they make it difficult for land buyers to take ownership of their property after purchase by charging unlawful fees and threatening or attacking construction artisans at building sites. These illegal exercises frequently pose a difficulty to city development, order and safety.
To worsen the case, these unscrupulous set of people extort money from buyers who are developing their properties. They demand money for everything you do on your property acquired from them. They ask for a ridiculous amount of money from the start of your housing construction to the finish point. Every building material transported to the site comes with a levy. All these are enough grounds to discourage anyone from investing in real estate.
READ: 10 Most Common Real Estate Questions Asked By New Investors
There are a whole lot of land cases in this category presently in court and Unfortunately, the “omo-oniles” are nowhere to be found and there are no means for these buyers to get their money back.
To escape the troubles of land disputes with land grabbers, purchase your property from an accredited real estate company. A lot of real estate companies are out there and few of them are legit. In order not to go out of the frying pan into the fire, do your due diligence. Consult a professional lawyer and a registered surveyor to assist you on your way to acquiring a property.
Middlechase Property Limited is one of the leading rental developers in Africa and our estates are legally authorized with a perfect title (Governor’s consent). The buyers don’t have to deal with Omoniles to pay any sort of fees to them and all documentations are done in their favour.
