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UNDERSTANDING LAND DOUCMENT

LAND CLASSIFICATION

Land can be classified as either free or acquired. A parcel of land is considered free if the government has not indicated any interest whatsoever in that land. Such land is safe to buy because the title on the land can be perfected without issues.

In most cases, such lands will either have a gazette, a C of O or a governor’s consent.

Now that you understand what it means for land to be free, you should also know that all lands that fall within areas that are designated as „urban areas‟ are under government acquisition until deemed committed or free.

There are two types of acquisition:

1. Committed Acquisition

2. Global / General Acquisition



COMMITTED ACQUISITION

A parcel of land is said to be under committed acquisition when the government has indicated an intention to use that land for a specific purpose such as provision of amenities.

Such lands belong to the government and can never be available for use by individuals. If you purchase land that is under committed acquisition, it will be impossible for you to perfect your land title and you’ll only be occupying the land until the government comes to kick you out.



GLOBAL OR GENERAL ACQUISITION

Lands that are under “general acquisition” or “global acquisition” can later be confirmed free or committed as the case may be.

A land under general acquisition can become free by a process called excision.

“Excision is a process whereby the government releases a portion of an expanse of land that is not committed” If a parcel of land that was formerly under acquisition becomes excised; it is then considered free and becomes gazette.

The gazette then becomes the title on the land and such land is safe to buy because a proper title can be processed on the land.

A second case where lands under general acquisition can be released is if an individual purchased a land that was under acquisition without going through an excision process.

Such lands can go through another process called “ratification” or “regularization” in which the land owner pays for the land to be ratified or regularized. The only conditions in this case are that the land in question must not fall within a committed area and that the purpose for which the land was bought does not disrupt the original plan of the state.

Conditions for ratification may differ from state to state.

Now that you understand the classification of land, let’s now look at meaning of each land documents that we have.