Interest in land can only be legally enforced in a court of law when it is a written document. All such dispositions must be signed by respective parties, witnesses, and attested.
Commercial transactions are urgent. A transaction done in good faith – fast but without due diligence is a disaster waiting to happen. A day turns into weeks, weeks into months, and months into unnecessarily too long. You fail to get the clearances or approvals to complete a simple transaction.
Consider the following list of imprtant key-notes in your Land sale and purchase arrangements.
Documentations
Make agreements, these serve a Forensic purpose. A documentary role.
These would discourage and avoid fraudulence. The intentions are declared by writing down of the Rights and Obligations. This eventually helps in the realization of the specific performance in contracts.
Notice
In other times the formalities would protect persons who are joint owners. Consultation and or notification to the other joint owners would confirm the validity of the transaction. An example is between husband and wife and the need for spousal consents in land transfers.
Create obligations
Follow formalities to create specific obligations. These shape decisions over land transactions it helps in Restitution under equity or Promissory estoppel.
Legality
For instance, Registration. There is no right conveyed if the conveyance is not registered. Registration keeps records. It makes up for ease of dealings and provides structures that help government to keep track of the user of any particulars such as in land and taxation. With functional structures, registration creates certainty, and security, complete with an opportunity for rectification. One then can claim Indemnity from the structures- government where there is fraud or an error in such a process- registry.
See our article on contracts/agreements here
