The most expensive assumption in Nigerian property is that a company which looks serious is serious. A glossy website, a branded bus, a fenced site with an impressive entrance gate, a well-dressed marketing team, a WhatsApp group with hundreds of members, an office in a good part of town. All of these can be assembled in a few weeks by anybody with modest capital, and all of them have been assembled by companies that later collected money and disappeared. We have all been trained by ordinary commerce to read those signals as evidence of substance, because in most industries they are. In Nigerian property they are simply the cost of a convincing entrance.
None of it is evidence. Evidence is different, and the good news is that it is available to any buyer willing to spend a few hours and a small amount of money. You can find out when a company was incorporated and by whom. You can find out whether it is registered with the state regulator where registration is required. You can visit estates it says it has delivered and speak to people living in them. You can ask for the company’s own title to the land it is selling you, and verify that title independently at the registry.
Companies that pass those checks are almost always genuine. Companies that fail them fail early and obviously, usually within the first two questions. This guide sets out the checks in order, from cheapest and fastest to most involved, and explains what each one actually tells you. It pairs with our guide to common land scams in Nigeria.
Check one: the corporate registration
Every legitimate Nigerian company is registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission and carries a registration number.
What to ask for: the full registered name and the registration number. Then verify it yourself rather than accepting a certificate photograph.
What you are looking for:
- Does the company actually exist under the exact name on the account you are being asked to pay into?
- When was it incorporated? A company registered four months ago selling a large estate deserves a great deal more scrutiny than one incorporated twelve years ago.
- Is it a limited company or a business name? A registered business name is a sole proprietorship or partnership, not a limited company, and the difference matters for liability and for how seriously you should treat the entity.
- Who are the directors and shareholders? Note the names.
- What is the registered address? Compare it with the office you visited.
The follow-up that catches most trouble: search the directors’ names. Do they appear as directors of other property companies? What happened to those companies? A pattern of short-lived property ventures under the same names is the single most useful red flag available to a buyer.
Check two: regulatory registration
Some states now require real estate practitioners to register with a state authority. Lagos in particular requires estate agents and developers to be registered with its real estate regulatory authority, and operating without registration is a contravention.
Ask for: the registration number with the relevant state authority, and verify it directly with that authority.
A company operating in a state that requires registration, and which cannot produce it, is either new, careless or deliberately outside the system. All three are reasons to slow down.
Also worth asking about: membership of relevant professional bodies. Estate surveyors and valuers in Nigeria are regulated by a statutory registration board and organised through a professional institution, and developers commonly belong to an industry association. Membership is not proof of honesty, but the absence of any professional affiliation in a company presenting itself as a major operator is worth noting.
Check three: delivered projects you can physically stand in
This is the most valuable check on the list and it cannot be faked.
Ask for: the addresses of two or three estates or developments the company has completed and handed over. Not projects in progress. Completed ones.
Then go. Drive there yourself. Do not accept a site inspection organised by the company to a location of their choosing.
When you arrive, look for:
- Are there actually houses, occupied by actual people?
- Are the roads, drainage and gate the ones that were promised?
- How does the workmanship look three or five years after handover?
- Is the estate maintained, or deteriorating?
Then speak to residents. Knock on three doors. Ask them four questions:
- Was the estate delivered when the company said it would be?
- Did you receive your documents, and how long did it take?
- Was the infrastructure delivered as promised for the levy you paid?
- Would you buy from this company again?
Fifteen minutes of that conversation is worth more than every brochure the company has ever printed.
Check four: the company’s own title to the land
A company can only sell what it owns. So the question is not only “what am I getting” but “what does the seller have”.
Ask for: the document by which the company acquired the mother land. That may be a deed of assignment from a family, a Certificate of Occupancy, or an excision with a gazette reference.
Then verify it independently. Instruct your own lawyer to run a title search at the land registry and a charting search at the Surveyor-General’s office, using the survey coordinates of the parcel. See land registry search in Nigeria.
What you are confirming:
- The company genuinely holds an interest in the parcel
- The parcel is free of government acquisition, or properly excised and gazetted
- There is no mortgage, caveat or pending litigation over it
- The parcel does not sit on a road corridor, drainage reserve or setback
A company that will not release its own title documents for verification before payment has told you everything you need to know. See excision and gazette explained.
Check five: the physical office and the people
Visit unannounced. Not by appointment.
What to observe: Is there an actual office at the registered address? Are there staff working, or is it a room with a desk and a banner? Is there any evidence of an operating business, such as files, a records system, an accounts function?
Ask to meet a director, not just a marketer. A company selling you a plot worth several million naira should be able to produce somebody with authority.
Ask about their team. Do they have an in-house surveyor, a legal team, a project manager? Who supervises construction?
Check six: the payment arrangements
This one is simple and absolute.
- Payment must be into a corporate account in the exact registered name of the company.
- Never into a personal account, no matter whose, no matter what explanation is offered.
- Never in cash.
- Every receipt must be on company letterhead, stamped, signed, stating the amount, the date, the property with its plot number, and the balance outstanding.
A company that asks you to pay a staff member personally “because the corporate account has an issue” is a company you should walk away from that day.
Check seven: the documents you will receive
Ask, in writing, before paying:
- Exactly which documents will I receive, and at what stage?
- What is the timeline for allocation, survey plan and deed?
- Will you assist with Governor’s Consent and registration, and at whose cost?
- May I see a sample of the deed you issue to buyers?
- What is your refund policy if I need to withdraw, and how long does a refund take?
- What are the default terms on a payment plan?
Then get the answers in writing on letterhead or by email. Verbal assurances from a marketer are not commitments from a company.
Check eight: independent signals
Online reviews, treated with care. Both positive and negative reviews can be manufactured. Look for detailed, specific complaints rather than star ratings, and look for how the company responds.
Buyer groups. Many estates have informal WhatsApp or Telegram groups of buyers. Ask to be added before you buy, not after. A company that resists this is worth questioning.
Court records. Your lawyer can check whether the company is involved in litigation.
The market. Ask two independent estate agents in that area what they know about the company. Agents talk, and they know who delivers.
The red flags, collected
- Payment requested into a personal account
- No completed projects, only renderings
- Registered very recently, selling a large development
- Cannot or will not produce its own title to the parcel
- Resists verification before payment
- Deadline pressure attached to a discount
- No physical office, or an office with no operations
- Directors who cannot be met
- No registration with the state authority where one is required
- Existing buyers who are unhappy, whom you had to find yourself
- Refund and default clauses that are vague or heavily one-sided
- Receipts without plot numbers
- Constantly shifting delivery dates on current projects
Final thoughts
The gap between a genuine Nigerian real estate company and a fraudulent one is enormous in substance and very small in appearance. Both can have a website, a logo, a bus and a confident sales team. That is precisely why appearance must be discarded entirely as a basis for decision.
What separates them is verifiable history. A real company has been incorporated for years, is registered where registration is required, has completed developments that you can physically visit, has residents who will speak well of it, holds a verifiable title to the land it is selling, operates from a real office with real staff, receives money only into its corporate account, and answers awkward questions without irritation.
That list takes a few hours and a modest amount in professional fees to work through, on a purchase that will take you years to earn back if it goes wrong. It is, without exaggeration, the best-value work available anywhere in the property buying process.
And the reassuring part is how quickly it sorts companies into two groups. The genuine ones welcome the questions, because a buyer doing proper diligence is a buyer who will actually complete and who will not become a problem later. The others become evasive within about five minutes.
Ask the questions and watch what happens. The answer is usually in the reaction long before it is in the documents.
