How do you know the money you sent from Abroad is safe!

How To Make Sure Money You Send From Abroad To Buy A Land Doesn’t Get Embezzled By Family Member Or friend You Trust.

For a while now, i have waged a relentless war against fraudulent land sellers called Omoniles especially in those in Lagos and have tried to expose all their deceitful practices to dupe people off their hard earned money but today am going to change course to raise awareness on another way people are being duped concerning landed issues and this particular kind of Land Scam is dedicated to our Brothers and Sisters Abroad slaving themselves to send money back home to their family members to help them purchase a land or build houses on their behalf only to finally come back home to see that the money they have sent back home has either being squandered stupidly, spent recklessly and the money has being used to develop THEIR OWN PROPERTY INSTEAD OF YOURS or simply that the Money has vanished into Thin Air.

In most situations where this family embezzlement has occurred, there neither will be no land purchased by the family member that was sent money to help buy the land or even if the land was purchased, no due diligence was carried out as per se as to validate the authenticity of the land or the description of the land given to the person abroad is totally different from what has been purchased.

We have heard cries of people coming home to see lands that have being purchased for them located inside the bush that is only fit for Monkeys to occupy. Some complain that their families buy extremely water logged lands that will make them spend so much money to sand fill. I have also heard of the ones that those kind of lands that the Omoniles will continue to drain the pockets of the person due to silly community fees that they are not conversant about until they give up the land. My favorite is always hearing stories of lands purchased by a family member that they cannot locate afterwards and the buyer is going about holding a receipt of a land that he cannot verify.

 

In fact there are so many personal examples and stories that i know off head that i will spare loads of our Lawyer’s readers the bad memories they might have encountered in the hands of family members whom they put their trust into but have failed them bitterly. Who do you blame? Your family member? The Seller of the defect Land or yourself?

Recently i read an article in the punch newspaper with regards to this issue and the major part that caught my eye in the whole story was this:

“Charles said he also sent N3.5m to her to buy a piece of land for him but she embezzled the money” What i will attempt to do here is to help you prevent such a thing happening to you again if you were once a victim and if you’re about to venture into such a thing, learn from these points to safe guard your money from family or friends you don’t trust to give money to assist you with a project.

1. Always Know what you intend to buy.

Don’t buy any land based on Internet Pictures Only. We live in a digital age. Tell the family member to compel the Seller or Agent to make a Video recording of the WHOLE AREA IN QUESTION. Don’t just settle for the Video of the Land only. Let them video the surrounding streets, easements, accompanying houses or landmarks etc so you can make an Informed decision whether it is a place you intend to buy. The first line of any kind of fraud in this instance comes from not knowing where the land is located and how it looks.

We have heard of so many people gist with Nigerians abroad that they should send money to buy land because Nigeria is improving and things are getting better. They tell them about the beautiful houses in Lekki and try to convince them that you should buy a land in Lekki but the Land they are inducing them to buy is located in Ibeju Lekki which a totally different area from Lekki itself and the dubious Family member ends up convincing the person abroad to just throw away money to purchase one bushy area that won’t see any development in the next 20 years. Please be firm and know what you intend to buy so that your relative won’t push you around to buy what you really don’t know about.

 

2. Also when you send money to that relative or friend, always send it through a well-known registered courier that can document how the money passed through with enough evidence as per the time, date and venue the money was received. Most times i see people abroad send the odd cash of $3000 here or $5000 there etc. These monies have no evidence to back it up and it opens a channel for a plethora of excuses in case the money is to be embezzled because it has no track record of money received and when the person collects the money always ask for the proof of money received.