Housing Deficit: Experts Seek Land Registration System Overhaul

Three operators in the real es
tate industry on Wednesday advised the Federal Government to decentralise land registration system.
They also urged government to embark on new strategies to reduce the huge housing deficit in the country.
The experts told newsmen in Lagos that approval of land title deeds should not be sole preserve of a state governor because such provision constituted a breach of human rights.
Dean, Faculty of Environmental Science, University of Lagos, Prof. Timothy Nubi, advised that government should liberalise the process of getting approvals to land documents.
The existing land use law, the Land Use Act of 1978, empowered only the governor of a state the sole right to give assent to land titles.
Nubi said that the government should overhaul the Act to ensure that titles to land could be approved at lower levels of government.
“They should be obtainable at the local government level,” he said
Nubi said that efficient land registration system would enhance wealth generation, facilitate more housing developments and create investment opportunities.
According to him, many operators and companies have left the property industry due to difficulties encountered in the county’s land registration system.
“It will speed up the processing of applications for land title by cutting-off unnecessary bureaucracies, financial demands, delays and other challenges encountered in the process.
The Executive Secretary, Association of Town Planning Consultants of Nigeria (ATOPCON), Mr Ayo Adejumo, suggested that government should educate the general public about land policies, individuals’ responsibilities and right of ownership.
Adejumo said there were some amendments to the land registration system that were not in the domain of the general public.
He said that government should stimulate people’s interest on land title registration and conversion of customary titles to statutory right of occupancy by reducing the cost.
“Duplication of work, lack of consensus in decision making process with professionals, lack of public awareness and transparency have all combined with the weak rule of law to create basis for corruption in the system,” he said.
Mr Kunle Awobodu, the Chairman, Building Collapse Prevention Guild (BCPG), said that the mortgage sector should be restructured to make it effective.
Awobodu said that there should be no secondary mortgage market without a vibrant primary mortgage market, adding that sustainability of housing development depended on effective mortgage system.
“Subsidisation of building materials, creation of credit facilities and enabling environment for the private sector to operate should be done,” he said.