Verify the person before the paperwork.

Start with the person, not the paper

Documents are only as good as the entitlement of the person holding them. The first question is never “what do you have?” but “who are you in relation to this home, and who else has a claim on it?”

• The owner of record — the name on the title, and the person who can transfer it.
• A family or estate — where land came down a family, one member selling alone is the classic problem. Ask who else must sign.
• An attorney — a power of attorney is real authority, but it has a scope and an expiry. Read both.
• An agent or a caretaker — authority to show a home is not authority to sell it, and is not always authority to let it.
• A tenant subletting — which most head tenancies forbid outright.

Someone in the last three categories can be entirely honest and still unable to give you what you are paying for.

What the paper trail should show

For a purchase, the chain should run from the current seller back to a grant the state recognises. For a tenancy, it should run from the person letting the home back to whoever holds the title.

1. The title document — C of O, Governor’s Consent, or a registered Deed of Assignment.
2. The survey plan, so the description matches the plot you are standing on.
3. Proof the land is free from government acquisition, or that any acquisition is ratifiable rather than committed.
4. Receipts in the name of the person you are actually paying.
5. For a tenancy, the landlord’s authority — and if an agent is collecting, whose agent they are.

A gap in the middle of that list is not automatically fatal. It changes what the property is worth and what your lawyer has to fix, and it should change the price.

Government acquisition, in one paragraph

Land in Lagos can fall inside a government acquisition. Where the acquisition is committed — the state has a specific use for it — a C of O will not be issued and the land is a bad purchase however cheap it is. Where it is uncommitted or general, it may be ratifiable, meaning the holder can apply to regularise it. That process costs money and takes time, so it belongs in the price, not in a surprise afterwards. The way to find out is a charting at the Surveyor General’s office, not a seller’s assurance.

What a family receipt proves

A receipt from a family, or from an omo onile, records that money changed hands. It does not confer a statutory right of occupancy, and on its own it is not a title. It can be part of a chain that a lawyer later perfects, and plenty of Lagos families hold land honestly on exactly that basis — but you should be buying it knowing what it is, and at a price that reflects it.

How ilee verifies, and where it stops

Three checks, each recorded separately, and each done by a person.

1. Identity and authority. The desk confirms who is offering the home and that they can. The outcome of that check is what gets recorded — ilee never stores a BVN, NIN, selfie or bank statement, and the API refuses those fields even if someone posts them.
2. Physical inspection. An inspector walks the home and photographs it. Nothing reaches the public site before this passes.
3. Title. Where a sale depends on it, the desk records which document was presented, whether the original was sighted, and whether the name matches the owner of record.

The badge on a listing tells you how far that went. A home marked Inspected · title pending has been walked and photographed, but the title has not been recorded yet. ilee Verified means the title check was completed and recorded too.

Where it stops matters as much as where it goes. ilee records what a person sighted. It is not a legal opinion, it is not title insurance, and it is not a substitute for your own lawyer and your own registry search. ilee also never holds money or takes a payment — a purchase is completed between you, the seller and your professionals.

The five things that should stop you

• The person showing you the home cannot say who owns it, or names someone who is not in the paperwork.
• You are shown a photograph of a document but never the document.
• The name on the title is not the name on the receipt, and nobody can explain the gap.
• You are pushed to pay a deposit before anyone will tell you what the title is.
• The price is far below the area’s range and the explanation is urgency.

None of these proves fraud. All of them mean the next step is a question, not a payment.