09/10/2026
Land disputes in Nigeria rarely start with malicious intent. They start with avoidable gaps. Here are the most common ones.
1. Purchasing land without a cadastral survey. Without a surveyor establishing and certifying your boundary, you are relying on seller descriptions and rough measurements that have no legal standing when challenged.
2. Multiple sales of the same plot. Family land in particular gets sold and resold to different buyers, sometimes years apart, because no proper record of the first sale exists on the ground.
3. Missing or removed boundary beacons. Without physical markers in place, boundary positions become subject to interpretation, and that interpretation is always biased toward whoever is encroaching.
4. Overlapping government allocations. Two legitimately issued titles covering the same or partially overlapping parcels of land, creating legal ambiguity that only a court or the Surveyor General's office can resolve.
5. Failure to perfect title after purchase. Paying for land without completing the title perfection process leaves ownership legally unrecognised, making the property vulnerable to future claims.
A professional surveyor engaged at the right point in any land transaction addresses most of these before they become problems.
π Focamark Geospatial | Lagos & Ogun State, Nigeria
π§ [email protected]
π www.focamarkgeo.com