We publish long, free guides about buying property in Nigeria. Because people make expensive decisions using that information, this page sets out how it is produced, who writes it, where the images come from, and what to do if you think something on this site is wrong.
Who writes the guides
The guides are written by Pauline Nnabuihe, who runs Paulyn Properties. They draw on day-to-day practice: sourcing land, arranging inspections, dealing with families and estate developers, and taking transactions through survey, deed, consent and registration in several Nigerian states.
Every guide carries the author name and the date it was published. Where a guide covers a specific state, it reflects how that state’s system actually works rather than a generic national description, because Lagos, Abuja and the South East each handle land very differently.
What we do and do not claim
We explain process, not outcomes. We can tell you what a Certificate of Occupancy is, which authority issues Governor’s Consent, and what a charting search will disclose. We cannot tell you that a particular corridor will definitely appreciate, and we do not.
We do not give legal advice. These guides are general information. Nigerian land law varies by state and every transaction has its own facts. We consistently tell readers to instruct their own lawyer, and we mean it.
We flag uncertainty. Where fees, thresholds or loan limits are set administratively and revised from time to time, we describe the structure of the cost and tell you to confirm current figures with the relevant authority, rather than quoting a number that will be stale in a year.
Worked examples are labelled as examples. Where a guide shows figures — a plot at three million naira, a block of flats at fifty million — those are illustrations chosen to make the arithmetic followable. They are not market quotations.
Commercial interest, stated plainly
Paulyn Properties sells property. That is a commercial interest and you should know about it while reading.
We have tried to handle it the honest way. The guides tell you to use your own lawyer rather than ours, to commission your own surveyor, to verify title before paying anybody including us, and to walk away from any seller who resists a search. Several guides explain in detail how to check whether a real estate company is genuine — advice that applies to us as much as to anyone else.
We do not accept payment to feature a location, an estate or a developer in a guide. The guides carry no sponsored placements.
Sources
The guides are grounded in Nigerian statute and practice — the Land Use Act and its consent and revocation provisions, state lands ministries and their registries, the offices of state Surveyors-General, the FCT’s land administration, the Federal Mortgage Bank and the National Housing Fund, state tenancy legislation, and the planning authorities that issue building approvals.
Where we describe a legal position, we describe the general rule and note that state practice varies. Where we describe market behaviour, we say so rather than presenting it as law.
Images
Every photograph on the guides is either in the public domain or published under a Creative Commons licence that permits reuse. Each one is credited on our image credits page with the photographer, the licence and a link to the original file on Wikimedia Commons.
We do not use photographs of specific named locations to illustrate a different place. Where a guide covers an area we do not have a genuine photograph of, we use a thematically relevant image and the alt text describes what the image actually shows.
Corrections
If something here is wrong, we want to fix it.
Email info@paulynproperties.com or call 0806 525 5056 and tell us which guide and what is inaccurate. We will check it, and where we are wrong we will correct the guide. Substantive corrections are made to the article itself rather than quietly deleted.
Requirements, fees and procedures in Nigerian land administration change. If you find a figure or a process description that has gone out of date, telling us helps every reader who comes after you.
Updates
Guides are revised when the underlying process changes, when we find an error, or when a reader points out something we have missed. We would rather a guide be accurate than untouched.
Contact
Questions about anything published here: info@paulynproperties.com, 0806 525 5056, or the contact page.