Here is a situation that plays out every week in Nigeria. A buyer finds a plot. The seller produces a genuine Certificate of Occupancy. A lawyer draws up a deed of assignment. Money changes hands, both parties sign, everybody shakes hands, and the buyer goes home believing the land is theirs. That belief is extremely widespread, it is held in good faith by people who did everything they were told to do, and it is one of the main reasons perfectly genuine Nigerian land transactions turn into problems a decade later.
It is not, or at least not completely. Under Nigerian land law, when land that already carries a state title is transferred from one person to another, that transfer needs the approval of the state Governor. That approval is called Governor’s Consent. Until it is obtained, the transaction is legally incomplete, and courts have taken that requirement seriously for decades.
This surprises people, and their first reaction is usually that it sounds like a needless extra step invented to collect fees. There is a real conversation to be had about the cost and the delays, and many buyers do skip it. But skipping it has consequences that show up later, at exactly the worst moment: when you try to sell, when you try to borrow against the property, when a dispute arises, or when your children try to inherit it. This guide explains what consent is, why the law demands it, how to get it, what it costs, and what actually happens to people who go without it. For the general order of a land purchase, see our complete guide to buying land in Nigeria.
Why the law requires consent
Go back to the foundation. The Land Use Act vests all the land in a state in the Governor, held in trust for the people. What a private person holds is a right of occupancy granted by the state.
If the state is the grantor, then it follows that the state has an interest in who holds its grants. So the Act provides that a holder of a statutory right of occupancy may not transfer it, whether by assignment, mortgage, sublease or otherwise, without first obtaining the Governor’s consent.
In plain words: the government granted the land to that person, so the government has to approve handing it to you. It is not so different from a landlord’s clause saying a tenant cannot sublet without written permission.
The Nigerian courts have interpreted this strictly. In a well-known Supreme Court decision from the late 1980s, the requirement was held to apply even to land that was deemed granted under the Act rather than freshly issued. The practical effect is that a transfer made without consent, where consent was required, is open to being declared invalid.
What consent actually gives you
Once consent is granted and your deed is stamped and registered, several things become true that were not true before.
- The transfer is complete in law. Your interest is no longer an inchoate arrangement between two private people.
- The registry records you. Your name enters the state’s land records as the holder. That record is what everyone checks later.
- You can deal with the property. Sell it, mortgage it, use it as security, transfer it into a company, or pass it on cleanly.
- Your position in a dispute improves dramatically. A registered interest with consent beats an unregistered deed almost every time.
- Your buyer pool widens. Serious buyers, banks and companies will not touch land where consent was never obtained.
The process, step by step
The details differ from state to state, and Lagos, Abuja and each state ministry have their own systems, but this is the common shape.
- Apply. Your lawyer submits an application for consent to the state’s lands bureau or ministry, in the prescribed form.
- Submit the documents. Typically the executed deed of assignment in several copies, the seller’s title document, the registered survey plan, purchase receipts, identification and photographs of both parties, tax clearance certificates, and evidence that ground rent and any land charges are up to date.
- Charting and verification. The survey coordinates are checked against the state map, and the title file is examined to confirm the seller is the recorded holder and that there are no encumbrances.
- Inspection and valuation. Officials may inspect the property and the state will assess its value, because most consent-related charges are calculated on value.
- Demand notice. The state issues a bill setting out the amounts payable.
- Payment. You pay the assessed charges.
- Execution and stamping. The consent is endorsed, and the deed is stamped.
- Registration. The stamped deed is registered at the land registry and you receive it back bearing a registration number.
When people talk about “perfecting” a title in Nigeria, this whole sequence is what they mean: consent, stamping and registration.
What it costs
The exact figures are set by each state and are revised periodically, so treat any specific number you read anywhere, including here, as an illustration rather than a quotation. What you should understand is the structure of the bill.
Expect charges of these kinds, most of them calculated as a percentage of the assessed value of the property:
- Consent fee
- Capital gains tax, which arises on the disposal and is commonly dealt with at this stage
- Stamp duty on the instrument
- Registration fee
- Neighbourhood improvement or development charges in some states
- Professional fees for your lawyer, and survey costs if a fresh survey is required
Added together, perfection commonly costs a meaningful single-digit percentage of the property value, and in some states more. On a 20,000,000 naira property, a total perfection bill in the region of one to two million naira would not be unusual.
That is real money, and it is exactly why people skip it. Which brings us to the important question.
What actually happens if you skip consent
Let us be honest rather than preachy. Plenty of Nigerian land changes hands with a deed and no consent, and the sky does not fall the next morning. Here is the realistic list of what actually goes wrong, in rough order of how often it bites.
You cannot sell easily. Your future buyer’s lawyer will run a search, find that the registered holder is somebody from two transactions ago, and advise their client to walk away or to knock the price down heavily. The discount you suffer at resale usually exceeds what you saved.
You cannot use the property as security. Banks lend against perfected title. An unperfected deed is not bankable.
Your position in a dispute is weaker. If somebody challenges your ownership, you are relying on a private document rather than a state record.
The seller can cause you problems. Since the state still recognises the seller as the holder, a dishonest seller retains the ability to create mischief, including purporting to deal with the property again.
The bill grows. Assessed values rise over time, and where charges are calculated on current value, perfecting in ten years is likely to cost more than perfecting now. Arrears of ground rent may also have accumulated.
Your family inherits a problem. Estates where the deceased never perfected title are among the most painful matters lawyers deal with.
So the honest summary is this. Skipping consent is not an instant disaster, it is a deferred and compounding cost. If you plan to hold the property for a long time and pass it on, or ever to sell it or borrow against it, get it done.
Consent, and the documents around it
It helps to see where consent sits among the other papers.
| Document | Role |
|---|---|
| Certificate of Occupancy | The state’s grant of the land to a holder |
| Deed of assignment | The private contract transferring the land from seller to buyer |
| Governor’s Consent | The state approving that transfer |
| Stamping | Paying duty on the instrument so it can be registered and used in evidence |
| Registration | Entering the transaction in the state land register |
| Survey plan | Identifying exactly which land is involved |
You need all of them working together. A deed without consent is a promise. A consent without registration is unfinished. The full set is ownership.
Practical tips
- Agree who pays what, in writing, before signing. In many transactions the buyer bears the perfection costs and the seller bears capital gains tax, but this is negotiable and should never be assumed.
- Make consent a condition of the sale. Hold back a portion of the purchase price until the seller has provided everything needed for the consent application and has executed all necessary documents.
- Check the seller’s arrears first. Unpaid ground rent and land charges follow the property and will surface during processing.
- Use a lawyer who does this routinely in that state. Perfection is procedural work, and experience with the specific registry saves months.
- Keep every receipt. Application, assessment, payment, stamping, registration.
- In the FCT, remember the vocabulary changes. There you are seeking the Minister’s consent through the FCT administration. See our Abuja land buying guide.
Final thoughts
Governor’s Consent is the least glamorous part of buying property in Nigeria and one of the most important. It is the moment when a private agreement between two people becomes a fact recognised by the state, and everything valuable about owning titled property flows from that recognition.
The temptation to skip it is completely understandable. The money is real, the process takes time, and nothing visibly changes on the day it is granted. The land looks the same. Your keys work the same. It is easy to tell yourself you will do it later.
But property is a long game, and consent is the step that determines what your ownership is worth when you finally need it to be worth something. On the day you want to sell, on the day you want a facility from a bank, on the day someone challenges you, or on the day your children present your papers, the question will not be whether you had a nice deed. It will be whether your name is in the register.
Build the cost into your budget from the very beginning, treat it as part of the purchase price rather than an optional extra, and get it done while the transaction is fresh and the seller is still cooperative. That is the cheapest and easiest moment it will ever be.
