Top 10 Red Flags or things to avoid when buying Land.

Most people especially people who are buying land for the first time normally find difficulty with the whole process of buying Land and they end up being scammed resulting into stress and financial losses.
These are top 10 Red Flags or things to Avoid When Buying Land.

1. Poor/Lack of Legal Documents.
If the land doesn’t come with documents or the seller is not ready to share the documents with you, then that is a red flag.
You have to do proper research of the land and ensure it is genuine because documents can be falsified such as title deeds and land transfer documents. Ensure everything is legitimate and authentic to avoid lawsuits or losing your property later on after so much on it.

2. Lack of Quality Physical Site Visit.
Because of our busy schedules, people don’t have time to visit landed properties they are interested in purchasing and now technology has made things easier whereby you can check the coordinate of the land location. Only pay after you have confirmed that the land meets your expectations with genuine title deed and is owned by the person purporting to sell it or a Real Estate Company like Amity Realtors ltd, that sells genuine land with a free survey and Architectural design.

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3. Seller in a Hurry To Close Land Deal.
Take your time and ensure you make wise decisions before signing off any deal presented to you. You don’t rush deals and when you notice the seller/ owner is rushing the deal on you, so you accept the offer presented to you which you know to be too good to be real. Don’t fall for it, Conduct proper and independent research on the property, location and verify the important documents also. Be careful, choose reliable Real Estate Agency.

4. Possible Land Disputes.
Overall the most commonly cited types of land conflicts experienced by the households surveyed are ‘boundary discrepancies’ (32.1%), land ownership wrangles (18.8%), inheritance and succession wrangles (15.5%) and illegal land occupation (12.3%). Before purchasing land it’s important that you confirm that there is no kind of Disputes on it.

5. Unclear payment Plan.

Some property owners will offer discounts or instalment payment to attract potential customers. Before committing to a payment plan or making that instalment please make sure that your Real Estate Agency will also honour obligation and stick to the agreed plan.

6. Unregistered land company(land dealers).
Government has laws in place that forbids all unregistered Property agents from practicing and their activities should be illegal.
People must ensure that they deal with the authentic and registered companies to avoid court cases.
Some of the effects of dealing with these unregistered companies include but not limited to the following:

(i)Fraudulent sales of properties at an alarming price since there is no regulatory body to regulate their activities.
(ii)Subselling/subletting a property that has once been sold to a person to another thereby resulting in endless court cases.
(iii)Conspiring with other agents to defraud innocent people of their hard earn money through agent charges when renting properties out.

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7. Inaccessibility.
When buying land make sure that the property is not landlocked because luck of direct access to the roads will translate to high transport costs.

8. The photos or Sketches don’t match the Land.
When your Real Estate claims to own a plot it claims to own then normally they should either provide a virtual tour, images of the place or a sketch map of the place. If you make a physical visit of the place but somehow the sketch map or images don’t match the physical place then there is a possibility that this might be a Scam.

9. Prices too low to be true.
Real estate is regarded as a fairly safe investment. Demand for real estate has increased steadily over the decades, and so has its price. If the Prices of a particular place is too low depending on value of the surrounding properties and location then that is a red flag. Ask yourself why that particular place is to cheap yet the immediate neighbourhood’s price is high.

10. Lack of a physical office in a well known location. A well established Real Estate Agency must have a physical office. This Contributes significantly to creating and defining corporate culture , it also facilitates social interaction and bonds between employee and lastly it allows for more spontaneous idea sharing and problem solving.