What a Certificate of Occupancy actually proves — and what it does not

Few documents in Nigeria carry as much confidence as a Certificate of Occupancy. A buyer is shown one and the negotiation effectively ends. A defendant produces one and expects the claim to fall away. In a great many matters, the party holding the certificate is genuinely surprised to find themselves in difficulty.

The confidence is not misplaced, but it is frequently overstated. It helps to be precise about what the document is.

What the Land Use Act did

The Land Use Act 1978 made a structural change to landholding in Nigeria. It vested all land in the territory of each state in the Governor, to be held in trust and administered for the use and common benefit of all Nigerians.

The consequence is that what a person holds in land is not ownership in the absolute sense. It is a right of occupancy — a right to occupy and use land for a term, subject to the conditions on which it was granted. That right comes in two forms. A statutory right of occupancy is granted by the Governor. A customary right of occupancy arises under customary tenure, or is granted by a Local Government in respect of land in non-urban areas.

A Certificate of Occupancy is the instrument evidencing a statutory right of occupancy. That is its function: it evidences the grant.

Evidence, not proof

Here is the distinction that matters. Evidence of title is not the same as conclusive proof of title.

Nigerian courts have consistently held that a Certificate of Occupancy raises a presumption that the holder is in possession and is the holder of a right of occupancy — but that the presumption is rebuttable. Where it is shown that the certificate was issued over land the grantor had no power to grant, the certificate confers nothing. It cannot manufacture a title that did not exist to be granted.

This is not a technicality. It is the ordinary way land disputes are decided. A person who holds land under a valid earlier grant does not lose it because someone later obtained a certificate over the same land. The certificate is set aside; the earlier title stands.

How a certificate comes to be defective

Several situations recur.

The land was already subject to an existing right. Where the state grants a statutory right of occupancy over land in respect of which an existing right subsists, the later grant is exposed. The question the court asks is who had what, and when.

The grantor had no authority. Land held under customary tenure by a family or community can only be alienated in the manner customary law permits, and by the persons customary law recognises. A certificate obtained on the strength of a purported sale by someone without that authority does not cure the defect in the sale.

The process was irregular. Where the statutory procedure for the grant was not followed, the certificate may be voidable.

There are competing certificates. It happens. Where two certificates exist over the same land, the court examines the root of each and determines which grant was validly made.

What this means in practice

For a buyer, the certificate is the beginning of the enquiry, not the end. What matters is the root of title — how the person offering to sell came to hold the land at all. That means examining the chain of documents behind the certificate, conducting a search at the land registry, and, where the land is or was held under customary tenure, establishing who had authority to deal with it. A physical inspection matters too: the courts attach weight to acts of possession and ownership on the ground, and land that is occupied by someone other than the seller demands an explanation before money changes hands.

For a person already in a dispute, the presence of a certificate on the other side is not the end of the matter. The enquiry is the same: what was the root of the grant, and did the grantor have the power to make it?

The practical point

A Certificate of Occupancy is a strong document and it is worth having. But it derives its strength from the validity of the grant behind it, and it can be no stronger than that grant. Treating it as self-proving is how buyers pay for land twice, and how defendants discover midway through a trial that the document they relied on was never going to carry the weight placed on it.