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By Michael Onyeachor
Buying a land anywhere in Nigeria is a painstaking task. If you have never done a research at anytime in your life, investing in the real estate market might be the first time you carry out a thorough research. However, if you have been buying lands and houses before now without doing any or no research, the “god of luck” must have either been on your side or that particular land you claim to own has been sold to you and many others. First things first, there’s a difference between possession and ownership. Therefore, this article will juxtapose both concepts as well as give you heads up on the necessary steps to take before buying a land in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
1. Who is selling? It’s very important to know who is behind the curtains when a land is being marketed to you. What’s the person or firm’s track record? How many estates have they completed and ALLOCATED to their subscribers? What court issues are they currently in? What are people saying about them? It is said that bad news move faster than good news hence if there is any stain on their name, it will be quite easy to find out. If it’s a firm selling to you, locate their office and visit or send someone there. Profile them to your satisfaction before even going to check the land.
2. What are they selling? The real estate business is a field that demands meticulous attention and time. Therefore, if you find a firm that claims to be into real estate but is still selling other things like oil, drilling, agriculture produce, etc “run o!”. Take a U turn and never return. One of the ways to identify a ponzi scheme company is the number of specializations they claim to be having; a genuine real estate firm has no business engaging in a far-fetched business activity. Emphasis on “far-fetched”.
3. Where are they selling? Location is everything in real estate but not all locations can be sold. In Abuja for example, the FCDA and Area Councils are responsible for land appropriation in their respective areas. Therefore, due diligence must be done to ensure that a firm isn’t selling a land for you with Area council papers when the land actually carries FCDA papers. (We will treat this in the next point). Also, areas in Abuja are partitioned into commercial, residential, green and industrial layouts. If you buy a land and build your house on a land meant for a school, development control will be at your door before you do house warming.
4. What document does the land carry? At point 3, we identified two major bodies in charge of land appropriation. Leave C of O and R of O for now. (We’ll discuss it later) Lands with FCDA origin carry more power than lands with area council origin which is why the former is quite “pricey”. The area councils have the prerogative to allocate lands in their given areas under the laws of the FCT. However, these lands are still subject to a confirmation by an organization in charge of designing and monitoring the Abuja master plan which is the Abuja Geography Information System (AGIS) office. Therefore, any land that is being sold to you with area council papers must carry an AGIS recertification paper which must be confirmed by AGIS physically before purchase.
5. Ask questions! When will the land be allocated to you? When can you start building? What documents will be given to the subscriber after purchase? What happens if i pay on installment and want a refund later? What happens when i decide to resell my land? What approval does the firm have on the site and who was the approval gotten from? What building design has been approved for the land? How does my next of kin take possession of the property incase of my demise?
Gone are those days were they sell lands to our fathers by taking them to a large expanse of land and point fingers to show them the size. Upon purchase and allocation of any property, there must be a survey plan handed over to you that will show you the actual size of your land on paper and its actual location in the estate. When you make full payments for a land, you become a land owner. That’s ownership. However, until a land is allocated to you, that land is still not yet in your possession. Ownership is good, possession is better.
Disclamer; There are some exemptions to the above points as well as additions that were restricted due to space and time.
Michael is the Co-founder and Head of Growth, Besitz group and he writes from Abuja.
![A renowned American Scholar and Founding Dean of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, Professor Graham Allison (2nd r), during his visit to the special exhibition “Tales of People-to-People Bonds Between China and the United States” in Beijing, on June 27, 2026. [Photo by Zhang Wei/chinadaily.com.cn]](https://d1jcea4y7xhp7l.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Nkcbt-150x150.jpg)
