The Situation
A young entrepreneur was buying a shop in a new plaza for ₦120,000,000. The seller presented as the developer's authorised agent and produced a full folder of documents, including what appeared to be a Certificate of Occupancy.
We checked each document against its own source rather than assessing the folder as a set.
- The Certificate of Occupancy related to an entirely different property.
- A search at the Corporate Affairs Commission returned no registration for the developer entity, so there was no corporate person behind the sale to hold to the contract.
We advised our client not to pay.
Document volume works on inexperienced buyers because it looks like thoroughness, and the effect is stronger when the documents are individually convincing. Each one is a claim about a specific register, so each one has an issuing authority that can confirm or deny it. The folder proves nothing until every item in it has been checked at source.