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A Lagos-based accountant we’ll call nothing in particular, because this happens to someone new every week, wired money for a plot in Ajah after seeing photos on WhatsApp. He lives in Houston. He had never set foot on the land, never met the seller in person, and never had a lawyer look at a single document. By the time he flew in six months later to start building, there was already a fence up, built by someone else holding a different Certificate of Occupancy for the same plot.

That story is not rare. It is close to routine.

What risks do diaspora buyers face when purchasing land in Lagos?

Buy nothing until a Nigeria-qualified lawyer has reviewed the title documents in person, at the relevant land registry, before you send a single naira. That is the decision. The trade-off is time and a legal fee against the alternative, which is far worse.

Lagos and Ogun States record more than 500,000 land scam incidents every year, and Nigeria loses over ₦100 billion annually to fraudulent property transactions, according to the same reporting. That is not a handful of unlucky buyers. That is a functioning industry, built around exactly the gap diaspora buyers can’t close: physical presence.

Sellers know you can’t inspect a plot on a random Tuesday. They know a video call and a few scanned PDFs can look convincing enough to release six or seven figures in naira. Some operators sell the same plot to three different buyers using forged versions of the same Certificate of Occupancy. Others sell land that the government has already acquired for public use, which no amount of paperwork fixes, because the title was never clean to begin with.

What makes diaspora buyers specifically vulnerable isn’t naivety. It’s distance. A Lagos resident who smells something wrong can drive to the site that afternoon. You can’t. Fraudsters price that in.

OAL, a Lagos law firm, puts it plainly: thousands of Nigerians abroad and at home lose substantial money every year to defective title, forged documents, or property already tied up in competing claims or litigation. The fix isn’t paranoia about every seller. It’s refusing to let geography force you to skip the one step that actually protects you: independent verification, done by someone with no stake in the sale closing.

Verify title documents through formal statutory searches

A Certificate of Occupancy with a government stamp on it and a Certificate of Occupancy that’s actually registered against that plot at the land registry are two different things, and only one of them means anything. The first is a piece of paper. The second is proof.

The Certificate of Occupancy (C of O) is issued by the state government and confirms ownership rights, normally for a term of 99 years. It’s the single most important document in a Lagos land transaction. But a photocopy, or even an original, tells you nothing on its own.

Documents get forged. Numbers get recycled. The only way to know a C of O is real is to have a lawyer conduct a search at the registry that issued it, matching the file number, the survey plan and the registered owner against what the seller has shown you.

This is what legal due diligence under the Land Use Act 1978 and Land Registration Law actually does. Research on Nigerian land law identifies defective titles, double sales and unregistered conveyances as recurring causes of land litigation, precisely because buyers skip the search stage. A lawyer checking the registry isn’t a formality. It’s the difference between a plot with one clean owner and a plot three people think they own.

For a diaspora buyer, this changes the entire shape of the transaction. You’re choosing whether an independent professional confirms the title before money moves, or whether you find out the truth after it has. Our guide to verifying a Lagos land title walks through what that search should cover in more detail, and it’s worth reading before you commit to any plot, not after.

Budget for mandatory transaction fees beyond the property price

Here’s a number worth sitting with: on a ₦60 million (roughly $50,000) property in Lagos, buyers should budget an extra ₦5 to ₦6 million in legal, documentation and statutory costs. That’s on top of the purchase price, not folded into it.

Diaspora buyers often price the land and stop there. They wire the agreed sum, assume the rest is small change, and get blindsided when stamp duty, registration, survey costs and legal fees land on top. If you’ve budgeted to the naira for a ₦60 million plot and nothing more, you’re already short by roughly ten percent before the deal is done.

This matters more for remote buyers than local ones, because a Lagos-based buyer can often negotiate payment staggering or pay fees as they arise, in person, as each step completes. Someone managing a purchase from London or Toronto is usually wiring funds in fewer, larger transfers, which means the ancillary costs need to be accounted for upfront, not discovered mid-transaction.

Treat the ₦5–6 million range as part of the acquisition cost from day one, and ask your lawyer for a written breakdown before you transfer anything. A seller or agent who waves away these costs, or claims they don’t apply to your deal, is a signal worth taking seriously.

Confirm there’s no undisclosed charge on the property

Before anything else, check whether the land or the company selling it has any registered charge against it, a mortgage or debt secured against the property that didn’t come up in the sales pitch. This is a different check from the title search. A title can be genuine and still carry a charge that makes it a bad buy.

Under the Companies and Allied Matters Act, a company that acquires property already subject to a registrable charge must deliver the particulars of that charge, with a certified copy of the instrument, to the Corporate Affairs Commission within 90 days of completing the acquisition. If the property sits outside Nigeria and the charge was created abroad, the same 90-day window applies, but it runs from when the document could reasonably have reached Nigeria by post.

Say the seller is a company, not an individual, and the land was previously used as collateral for a loan. If that charge was never properly registered or discharged, your purchase could inherit a dispute that has nothing to do with the title itself. Skip this check, and you could find out about the charge only when a bank or creditor shows up asserting a claim on land you believe you own outright.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I buy land in Lagos without travelling to Nigeria?

Yes, but only by using a Nigeria-qualified lawyer to handle verification and documentation on your behalf. The risk with buying remotely isn’t the distance itself, it’s letting an unverified seller or unlicensed agent manage the process unsupervised, which is how most diaspora land fraud happens.

What is the single most important document to check before buying land in Lagos?

The Certificate of Occupancy, because it confirms the government-recognised ownership right for a term of 99 years. But the document alone proves nothing until a lawyer confirms it’s registered at the land registry against that specific plot and seller.

How much should I budget beyond the purchase price?

Expect roughly ₦5 to ₦6 million in additional legal, documentation and statutory costs on a ₦60 million property. The exact figure scales with the property’s value, so ask for a written cost breakdown specific to your transaction rather than relying on a flat percentage.

Why do land scams target diaspora buyers specifically?

Because distance removes the one check a local buyer can do for free: showing up. Lagos and Ogun States see more than 500,000 land scam incidents annually, and sellers who run these schemes rely on buyers being unable to verify a site or a document in person.

What happens if I discover a charge on the property after buying it?

A registered or unregistered charge on land you’ve bought can expose you to a creditor’s claim even after you believe the purchase is complete. This is a separate risk from title fraud, and it’s one reason the verification process should include a company and charge search, not just a title search, before any funds move.