Is It Safe To Buy Land In Ibeju Lekki With Its Excision In Process?

Posted by Karo Itoje in Blog Updates, Land Tips and Advice
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If you go through our list of estates in Ibeju Lekki available for sale you will notice that most of them are listed with Excision in Process as title. It simply means that they are still on the process to get the land excised.

What is Excision?

An Excision means basically taking a part from a whole and that part that has been excised will be recorded and documented in the official government gazette of that state.

To make that clearer, here’s how omonile lawyer explained it:

The land use act coupled with other laws made it possible for the Governor who was now the owner of all lands in the state to actually have the power to Acquire more lands Compulsorily for its own public purpose to provide Amenities for the greater good of the citizens. The Acquisition of land from the Family by the Governor who is now the custodian of all lands in the state was now empowered by the Land Use Act to take the general control and management of all URBAN land and any area designated as an Urban area by the Governor shall be published in an Official Government Record book known as the Gazette.

Any area, community or village the Governor designates as an Urban Area is an Acquired land and the rest of the land it has not Acquired may be given back to the community it was acquired from in the form of an Excision.

So it is right to say that Excision in process means that “officially” the land in question has not been released or given back to the community. Now the obvious questions that raises are, how safe it is then to buy such lands? What happens to an investor’s money if the Excision isn’t approved? Can an allocation be done for such land without an approved excision?

These are legitimate questions and I’ll clear them up in this article.

Is it safe to buy a land with Excision in process?

Update: 13/03/2020

Some of the things I said below have changed. So for an up to date information to this question please watch the videos below.

Yes, to a large extent it is safe to buy a land with excision in process.

Here’s the truth.

First you should know that an acquired land and a committed land are not the same thing. With a committed land the Governor of the state has already made it clear that they have a purpose for the land and a title can’t even be processed on it. If you buy a committed land there’s no chance of keeping it you will lose it to the government and therefore lose your money. However with an acquired land, though it is still under the government, it can be released, and usually are. The proof of that is that there’s no record in the land registry of a land where it’s excision request was completely denied. What can happen and sometimes happens is that the total area of land applied for to be excised is not excised. Meaning if 300 acres was applied for to be excised 100 or 150 is excised. And if this is the case, what happens to some of the buyers?

I have asked that question too from our real estate partners. And the answer I got is that they will reapply for the area not granted excision and keep reapplying until they get the whole land in the estate excised. Sometimes the government deliberately do things this way to get more money from the process.

If that’s not reassuring for you then maybe this will.

You can not lose your money when you buy from our partner companies. The selected companies we work with are vetted and we know them. The worse case scenario if you buy from one of our estates with Excision in process is that you will be moved to another estate. And if it’s a higher priced estate then you will be asked to make an additional payment.

But even that is yet to happen with any of our estate partners. You can also ask for your money back, except when you ask for a refund for whatever reason 30-40% is deducted from the money as administrative and agency fee, which makes option one the best option for worse case scenario.

So yes, buying a land with excision you are taking on some risks but we could say it’s a reasonable risk especially considering you’re buying a plot for at least 3 times less what you will pay for a plot of land with approved excision. The lowest priced land we have that has an approved excision is RoyalFlex estate Phase 2. And our estates with excision in process cost between N600k – N2million. That’s a big save and can make a huge difference on return on investment if you want to invest long term, like buy, hold and sell later.

Can physical allocation be done on an estate with its Excision in process?

Yes. It can be done and it is being done. Some of our estates selling with excision in process including Bricks and Bars, Royal Haven and Luxury Homes have had their first batch allocation. However take note that even though allocation can be done on such lands you can’t build and shouldn’t build until the land has been excised, for obvious reasons. Buildings erected on a land awaiting excision stand a risk of being pull down by the government of the state.