How to Identify and Avoid Property Scams

The most convincing fraudster I ever met had a genuine office, a genuine business card, and a car with a driver.

He was selling plots in a "new estate" off one of the southern corridors. The brochure was beautiful. The site had a gatehouse under construction. There were eleven buyers on his list, and every one of them had been shown the same corner plot at different times of the day.

There was no estate. There was a piece of land he did not own, a gatehouse he was building to make it look real, and a brochure printed for less than the cost of a decent lunch.

Nobody is stupid in these stories. That is what makes them worth telling. The people who fall for property scams are careful, hard-working people who were told a good story at a moment when they wanted to believe it.

Here are the patterns I have learned to recognise, and the habits that make you a very unattractive target.

Pattern one: the document that is too perfect

Real Nigerian land documents are not beautiful. Genuine records are often old, faded, photocopied three times, with a filing reference a clerk wrote by hand.

When a seller proudly produces a crisp, glossy, laminated certificate with a gold seal, be careful. Forgeries are often more polished than the real thing, because they are made to impress instead of to record.

The defence is simple and it never fails: verify at the source. Take the document to AGIS and ask for a search. A genuine title survives a search. A forgery does not.

Pattern two: two buyers, one plot

This is the most common scam in land, and it needs nothing more than a photocopier.

A seller shows the same plot to several buyers. Each pays. Each gets a receipt and an assignment. The first to reach the registry wins; the others own a piece of paper and a court case.

The defence: search the title in your own name before you pay the balance, and make sure your money is not handed over until your lawyer confirms the file has been lodged properly. Never accept "we are processing it, you will get the papers later."

Pattern three: the family land story

"It is family land. We have not done the C of O yet, but the family has agreed to sell."

Sometimes this is true. Often it is true for one member of a large family and false for the other nine. In family land transactions the risk is not usually forgery. It is authority. The man selling may genuinely believe he can sell. His cousins, his uncle and his late father's second wife may disagree, and Nigerian courts are full of cases where they disagreed successfully.

The defence: if you buy untitled family land, you need every adult with an interest to sign, and you need a lawyer to confirm that the signatories are who they say they are and that customary requirements are met. If the family cannot produce a clean, consistent set of consents, walk.

Pattern four: the price that is too good

A plot in a well-known district, at forty percent below anything comparable in that district, offered as though you have been personally selected.

There is no discount in real estate that comes from kindness. The market does not have secret prices reserved for strangers. A price that cannot be explained is a problem that has not been explained.

The defence: ask why. Not once, in passing. Ask directly: why is this cheaper than the plot two streets away? If the answer concerns urgency, illness, or a seller "relocating next week", treat it as a warning, not a story.

Pattern five: urgency as a business model

"There are three other buyers coming this afternoon."

"The owner is travelling tomorrow."

"Pay a deposit today and we hold it for you."

Urgency is designed to prevent exactly the checks that would save you. Any seller who resists due diligence is telling you something important about the deal, whether they mean to or not.

The defence: no deposit until the checks are done. A genuine seller with a genuine title will accept two weeks of diligence without panic. In fact, the genuine ones prefer it.

Pattern six: the account that is not the seller

The documents carry one name. The receipt is signed by another. The money is requested in a third: an uncle, an assistant, a company account with an unrelated name, or a personal account belonging to the agent.

Money paid into the wrong account is the fastest way to lose a case you should have won. The judge will ask where you paid. The answer will not help you.

The defence: pay only into an account in the name of the party named on the documents, and get a receipt that matches. No exceptions for relationships and no exceptions for convenience.

Pattern seven: the offshore middleman

Diaspora buyers are targeted with particular skill. A trusted cousin, a church member, a family friend, offering to inspect, negotiate and pay on your behalf.

Sometimes it is exactly as it seems. Sometimes the photographs of the site are from the last buyer, and the survey plan is from the plot next door.

The defence: engage an independent professional on the ground, hired and paid by you, who has no relationship with the seller. We do this work for clients abroad constantly, and the cases that go wrong are almost always the ones where the family friend was the buyer's only check.

The habits that make you safe

• Verify before you pay, always, at the source.
• Never pay a deposit to "hold" a property you have not verified.
• Insist on a search, a site visit with a licensed surveyor, and a lawyer you hired.
• Pay by transfer, into the account that matches the documents, and keep every receipt.
• Put every promise in writing, including what happens if the process stalls.
• Ask for previous buyers you can call. Then call them.
• Check the company on the Corporate Affairs Commission register if you are dealing with a company.
• Slow down when you feel excited. Excitement is the sensor that scammers work hardest to trigger.

If you have already been scammed

Report it to the police, and to EFCC for cases involving financial fraud, and put the land registry on notice where a title is involved. Gather everything: receipts, chats, bank records, the documents themselves. Cases are won on paper trails, and the earlier you preserve yours, the better.

I will not pretend that reporting always produces recovery. But silence guarantees you lose twice.

How we handle it here

At Tessy Luxury Properties, every property that carries our name has been searched, surveyed and inspected before it reaches a client. We do not market anything on a promise. If a file has a defect we cannot fix, we do not list it, no matter how profitable the sale would be.

If you have been offered something and you feel a small unease in your chest, trust the unease and let us look at it with you. Ten minutes of checking has saved clients amounts they still talk about.

Book a free property investment consultation with Tessy Luxury Properties. Bring whatever you have been offered, and we will review the documents with you honestly before you commit a naira. Reach us on WhatsApp on +234 818 088 9398.