I have a story to tell and I tell this story with the hope that a prospective property investor out there will be armed with the right information for when the property is finally purchased.

A client walked into my office just recently with a survey plan on his land dated 2004 with an instruction for me to perfect his title deed as he was finally in a financial capacity to do so. I requested for a copy of the survey plan because the first step I had to take to start the process was to conduct land information at the Surveyor General’s Office to ascertain the status of the land using a copy of the survey plan. However, when I got to the Surveyor General’s office to commence the land information process, the red copy could not be found, which means the land surveyor who drew the survey plan never lodged a red copy.

You may be wondering, what is a red copy? A red copy is the record copy or official copy of the survey plan that MUST be lodged (submitted) by a registered land surveyor who draws a survey plan with the Surveyor General’s Office, and who must also have a letter of submission of the record copy as proof of such lodgment, otherwise perfection of the title deed on a land will be impossible.

I went back to the client and informed him of the development at the Surveyor General’s Office and it was obvious he was unaware of the need and importance of having a red copy of the survey plan lodged. In the course of our discussion, I realized he also had no idea of the whereabouts of the surveyor who drew the survey plan in order to ask him for an explanation for the non lodgment of the red copy and this was because he thought the surveyor’s work back then in 2004 stopped at just drawing the survey plan and that further contact with him was unnecessary .At that point, I had to sit him down and informed him that without a red copy of the survey plan lodged with the Surveyor General’s Office, there was no way I or any other lawyer could proceed with perfecting his title deed to the land. Consequently, he had to pay for a fresh survey plan on the land to be drawn and lodged with the Surveyor General’s Office, so that his title deed could be perfected.

This story here is the story of many Nigerians who are ignorant of this fact and who at the point of perfecting their title deed find out they have paid for a survey plan that is totally useless for that purpose and end up having to incur expenses for a fresh one to be drawn and lodged.

Aside from this ignorance, many property investors have been known to contribute to their own hardship by bypassing land surveyors because of their supposedly high fees but who will do the needful and instead patronize surveyors who charge them ridiculously low fees and end up not lodging the survey plan.

For the land owner out there, who is at the stage of having the survey plan of the land purchased drawn, it is pertinent that you approach a registered land surveyor with a proven track record and ensure that the survey plan is lodged and proof of it provided, so that you will not be frustrated or incur unplanned expenses for whenever you do decide to perfect the title deed to your land.

Let this be at the back of your mind ‘NO RED COPY, NO PERFECTION OF TITLE DEED’.