Introduction

Land is very imortant in the lives of human beings. Human beings cannot survive on earth without land. They build their houses on land. They do their businesses on land and derive their food from land . Even when they die they are buried under the land. I will write on the steps to buying Land in the South East of Nigeria from today to next Saturday . We shall begin with the nature of land. reasons people buy land and steps you must take to buy good title to land, that is to say, steps to avoid mistakes that will lead to the loss of the land bought and what to do to protect your land in the event of any suit arising from the purchase. Let us start with the meaning of land.

Definition of land

Land can ordinarily be said to mean the soil,or the earth which we walk on, build houses on or conduct agricultural activities but professionals for example lawyers define land in a technical sense. To them land is seen from the eye of the law. The law sees land as the soil, everything attached to the soil, above it up to the high heavens and the sub sol/everything beneath the soil up to the center of the earth. Houses that we build on the soul becomes part of land because it's permanently affixed to it. However, when we buy land the law under certain circumstances limit which part of land that we as individual buyers or inheritors can own.

In Nigeria, if the government discovers valuable minerals under my land the minerals belong to government and my surface right is taken away and I will be compensated. It would still be possible for the land to revert to the owners since the purpose for which the government took the land has been fulfilled. Land, therefore carries with it bundles of rights which different people can own at the same time. The transaction over land is complex and technical . Land is not a commodity that none legal minds can dabble into without lawyers guidance.

For the safety of purchaser's investment the law prescribes rules which buyers and sellers must follow. Some factors that uninformed buyers overlook often result to serious consequences. Litigations that it results to may lead to losses by way of heavy litigation cost, valuable time and embarrassment of not fulfilling the purpose for which the land was bought.

Conclusion

It is therefore advisable that whenever we intend to buy land we should engage the services of a lawyer. It is cost effective. I found this point convenient to stop today.
My next write up shall be on reasons why people buy land. Thank you.