Alternative Property Documentation in Nigeria: A Case Study of Ogun State Home-Owner Charter Programme

Abstract

Most occupied residential property developers in Nigeria urban centers are faced with lack of land-title and physical development documentation and problem of acceptability of population census data. Consequent upon these and in the realization of likely loss of significant revenue accrual there from, and perhaps due to the emerging sporadic yearning and aspiration of most property owners to have their respective properties properly and statutorily documented for record purpose or for financial obligations or both, the government of Ogun State, Nigeria came up with a program tagged " Homeowner Charter (HOC) 2013 ". The programme provides window of opportunity for home-owners or property developers in respect of residential buildings for securing statutory land-title and development permit, with concession/waiver on some usual pre-requisites and financial obligations. This was to stimulate voluntary compliance with the physical development requirements by homeowners for generating appropriate population data for developmental project planning and implementation. This paper therefore attempts the assessment of the level of achievement of the Government of Ogun State, Nigeria in this pursuit. Pertinent data were obtained through a case study approach and field survey of randomly selected 304 respondents in Ogun State and data there from were subjected to descriptive statistical analysis. Findings revealed that although revenue-raising was not indicated as one of the objectives of HOC programme, the programme was able to create a considerable revenue share from property market both in primary form and secondary form to the Government. The Ogun State Government gave priority to revenue generation above other objectives set for the program and the program is generally not meeting up with the scheduled time for the exercise. The study also found out that the HOC program benefitted all the stakeholders, but with shortcomings of abuse of existing planning and land documentation processes and encouragement of pre-mature inhabitation of buildings. It is therefore recommended that Government should emphasise on speedy delivery of the HOC programme rather than revenue generation and take caution so that the programme do not extinguish the already established land documentation and planning permit approval system.