PROPERTY TRANSACTION GUIDE

Association warns property owners against fraudulent developers
By Agency Reporter

Punch, Monday, 9 Feb 2009

Nigerians have been warned to be careful in choosing developers for their properties because the industry is currently being infiltrated by fraudsters who, often parade themselves as developers and dupe their victims of billions of naira in the guise of helping them.

The Association of Real Estate Developers of Lagos State, which is an umbrella of a group of registered developers, expressed concern over what it termed the ugly development, and advised property owners to be cautious in giving their property to just anybody for development.

The developers, a statement jointly signed by the General Secretary and Chairman, Monitoring Committee of the association, Mr. Tosin Alatishe and Alhaji Yusuf Lukman respectively, said that it would be better for property owners to deal only with members of the association and other recognised groups like the Real Estate Developers Association of Nigeria to execute of property developments.

They AREDOLS officials urged clients and prospective tenants to carry out investigations about the developers from the association before committing money into projects or paying rents for completed buildings.

This, they said, was necessary to stop dubious developers from going away with people’s hard earned money.

On the recent decision of the Lagos State Government concerning building plan/permit, they urged the government to urgently attend to planning drawings submitted to it and grant approval where appropriate.

They said, "On the approved building plan/permit, we crave the indulgency of the state government to do something on it. We referred to the publications of February 4, 2009, where the Ministry of Physical Planning and Urban Development listed 488 houses, asking for their permits, which were mostly not given since 2006 or risk demolition."

Alatishe said some of his colleagues, whose houses were listed in the said advertisement, had supply their drawings seeking for approval/planning permit since 2006 without any response from the government.