A very common word “land sellers” use when dealing with investors is the word “gazette”
When potential investors ask for the title on a particular land, in
some cases you hear things like; “it is gazetted” or “it has a gazette”.
This is one very confusing document that most investors (especially first-time investors) know absolutely nothing about.
Most land buyers in Nigeria who do not understand the real estate
industry do not know what a gazette looks like, its advantages or its
disadvantages.
Well, that’s about to change…
A gazette is a very important document that could prevent your home from being demolished anytime in the future.
Now before we explain what it means for a piece of land to be gazetted,
let us briefly look at the history of the word itself as it pertains to
real estate.
Before the land use act was passed in 1978, lands
belonged to powerful traditional families who had absolute power to do
whatever they wished with their lands.
This made it difficult for
individuals to purchase land as the families only gave out these lands
for rent or lease but still had total control over the lands.
This led to the creation of the Lagos Executive Development Board which
allowed individuals to acquire land directly from the board in exchange
for a sum of money without having to meet these families.
This
did not stop the families from selling their lands and did not solve the
problem totally as these families remained powerful and had exclusive
rights to choose which land they wanted to sell and which they wanted to
keep.
This made land very expensive and difficult to acquire and
it caused a lot of dispute between individuals which then led to the
declaration of the Land Use Act in 1978.
This law entrusted all
lands in the federation into the hands of the government and made the
governors of the states, custodians of lands in their states.
In other words, the governor of a state is the owner of all lands in the state.
Individuals could now directly obtain land from the governor and the
governor in turn could allocate lands to individuals and issue a
certificate of occupancy.
Now because the governor is the
custodian of all lands in the state, he has the power to acquire lands
designated as “urban areas” for the use of the public or provision of
amenities.
Details of any land in such area that has been designated
as an urban area is then published in an official government record
book known as a gazette.
“A gazette is an official record book where all special government deals are detailed and recorded”
So what happens to the traditional families?
The families who own these lands originally, can apply to the
government to release a portion of the land for them to use for specific
purposes.
The government in turn will then cut out a portion of the
expanse of land that is not under committed acquisition(hyperlink) and
release it to them in form of an excision.
This usually takes a formal process.
The excised land will then be recorded and documented in the official government gazette of that state.
“Excision simply means cutting out a part from a whole”.
Illustration:
For example if an area is estimated to be 200,000 square meters and the
family who originally owns the land applies to the government for
90,000 square meters, the government will look into the application and
determine if the land falls within a committed area and the portion of
the land it can give out in form of excision.
The government may end up giving the family say 50,000 square meters in the form of an excision.
The portion that is given to the family in form of excision is then
registered in the official government gazette of the state and the
family can get a copy of the document.
From this point, the family or whoever owns the land can easily process a certificate of occupancy for the land.
The excised land which has been registered in the official government gazette is then said to be “gazetted”.
Any land that has a title that says “gazetted” is free from government
encumbrance and can be considered genuine if the portion that is being
sold to you is within the area that has been excised.
If the government has a need to encroach on the land, then they would have to pay a compensation to the owner.
A Gazette is a powerful document and can be used as land title in place of a certificate of occupancy.
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