Nigeria’s growing off-plan property market is exposing homebuyers, particularly diaspora investors, to risks ranging from project abandonment and delayed delivery to diversion of funds. Mayowa Adeosun, founder and CEO of Assetrica, in this interview with BusinessDay’s Joshua Bassey, argues that escrow accounts alone can’t guarantee buyers’ protection without independent verification of construction milestones before developers access funds. Adeosun also examines the governance gaps undermining confidence in Nigeria’s real estate market, explaining the significance of Assetrica’s Memorandum 001, adopted at the 15th National Council on Lands, Housing and Urban Development. Excerpt…
With the growing popularity of off-plan property purchases in Nigeria, what are the major financial and governance risks facing homebuyers who pay for properties before construction is completed?
The biggest risk is that buyers are financing construction without sufficient visibility into how their money is being used. The buyer commits funds based on a delivery promise, but there may be no independent mechanism to establish whether the developer has achieved the milestones being paid for.
You have the obvious risks: project abandonment, delayed delivery, cost overruns, and diversion of funds. But I think the deeper issue is governance. Who controls the money? Who verifies the work? Who is accountable when what has been reported does not reflect what is happening on site? Off-plan financing itself is not the problem. Developers need capital to build. The problem arises when the financing arrangement lacks the controls to protect the person providing that capital.
How exposed are diaspora Nigerians investing remotely to project abandonment, diversion of funds and other financial losses, particularly when they cannot independently monitor construction progress?
They are the most exposed group in the entire market, and that follows directly from the structure of the problem. Diaspora Nigerians are sending home record amounts. The CBN’s Q2 2026 Statistical Bulletin shows IMTO inflows of $1.57 billion in the second quarter alone, up 33 per cent year-on-year, with first-half inflows reaching approximately $2.86 billion. A substantial portion is going into real estate, and much of it into off-plan, because off-plan is where you get the payment flexibility and the launch-price entry point that makes the numbers work for someone earning in pounds or dollars. The protection gap is widest where the monitoring gap is widest. That relationship is structural.
Escrow accounts are often presented as safeguards for homebuyers. Why are they insufficient without independent verification of construction progress before funds are released to developers?
Escrow is necessary, but it solves only one part of the problem. It controls where the money is held and the conditions under which it can be released. What it does not automatically establish is whether those conditions have actually been satisfied.
The Minister of Housing himself, Dr Muttaqha Rabe Darma, cited Dubai at the July 2026 stakeholder validation workshop when he was talking about escrow arrangements. But what makes Dubai’s model work is not just the escrow account. Under Law No. 8 of 2007, funds are released only after a regulator-accredited independent consultant has physically inspected the site and certified that the specific milestone was achieved.
The developer cannot withdraw funds at will. Also, the inspector is approved by the regulator rather than chosen by the developer, and the whole chain is documented.
If you give me escrow without independent verification, you’ve addressed the custody problem but not the verification problem. And in housing finance, the verification problem is the more dangerous one, because that is where the physical structure is built or fails to be built.
Assetrica’s Memorandum 001 was adopted as a resolution at the 15th National Council on Lands, Housing and Urban Development in October 2026. What governance gap was the memorandum designed to address?
The specific gap is this: the decision to release money and the duty to confirm the conditions for releasing it sit with the same set of parties, parties whose interests are served by the release. That is a structural conflict of interest, not a character problem.
Off-plan buyers, rent-to-own contributors, cooperative scheme members, and mortgage beneficiaries all commit money in advance of construction with no independent node in the disbursement chain. The developer says “milestone complete”; the disbursing party accepts it, and money moves. But there is no mandatory independent check, so the buyer has no way to know. The objective was to bring a practical governance mechanism into that chain, particularly for contributors investing remotely.
What informed your proposal for national guidelines mandating independent professional verification of construction milestones before corresponding payments are released to developers?
Part of it came from examining how housing development is financed in Nigeria. Developers struggle to access affordable long-term capital, so many rely on off-plan sales to fund construction. Buyers effectively become a source of development finance, but without the protections you would expect in a properly governed financing arrangement.
My background is in finance and risk, so I tend to look at the controls around a transaction. If you are releasing money against an agreed condition, there should be credible evidence that the condition has been met. We proposed using independent, qualified professionals to verify construction milestones and building standards compliance before funds are released. The idea is to make accountability part of the payment process, rather than something we investigate after a project has failed.
What does the Council’s adoption of the resolution mean for homebuyers, and what more is required to translate it into an enforceable national regulatory framework?
First, we need to be clear about what happened. The Council adopted a resolution urging the Federal Ministry to develop national guidelines. That does not mean verification requirements have become mandatory across Nigeria. What it means is that the issue has received attention at an important national policy forum, and for homebuyers investing remotely, that recognition matters.
The next stage is where the real work begins. The guidelines need to define who can conduct verification, how independence will be established, and the responsibilities of developers and disbursing institutions. The UAE built a comparable framework from policy intent to operational reality in stages. Nigeria has the institutional foundations to do the same.
How would independent construction milestone verification work in practice, from a buyer’s initial payment to project completion and property handover?
Ideally, the process begins before the buyer makes a payment. The development agreement identifies the milestones, the applicable building standards, the payment schedule and the conditions for releasing funds. Buyers’ contributions are held in escrow, with payments released only after an independent professional verifies and documents the completed work. This continues through construction to final verification and handover. The important thing is accountability: every disbursement should have a clear evidence trail showing what was paid, what work justified it and who verified it.
Who should conduct these independent assessments, and what safeguards would ensure their independence from developers and financiers?
The memorandum is specific on this and deliberate about it. The professionals should be drawn from the regulated professions already in existence: registered engineers, builders, surveyors and quantity surveyors, individuals who already operate under professional codes of conduct and disciplinary bodies.
The critical safeguard is the appointment mechanism. The developer should not be able to appoint their own verifier. The verifier should be drawn from a panel maintained by the regulator and assigned at arm’s length. The developer does not choose their inspector any more than a taxpayer chooses their auditor.
Second is the conflict register. Any relationship with the developer or related parties must be declared, and any disclosed conflict disqualifies the professional for that project. Third, records should sit on a tamper-evident, timestamped system. Right now, a building can be certified at every stage and still collapse, with no documented chain of accountability. This system builds that chain.
If a developer receives 70 percent of a property’s purchase price but completes only 30 percent of the construction, what mechanisms would prevent this imbalance, and who should be held accountable?
That is precisely the imbalance a milestone-based payment system should prevent. Construction payments should be linked to independently verified milestones, not payment dates or self-reported progress. Disbursements should reflect certified work and justified project costs, with enforceable consequences for misrepresentation or unauthorised fund releases.
Which government institutions and professional bodies should drive the proposed guidelines, and what immediate steps are needed to make them operational?
The Federal Ministry of Housing and Urban Development is the right anchor institution, and the minister has already signalled alignment by citing Dubai’s model at his own workshop. But the Ministry cannot do it alone. They should lead, working with FMBN, CBN and relevant professional bodies, including COREN, NIOB and NIQS. Financial institutions must also be involved. The immediate priority should be a technical working group to define verification procedures, followed by pilot implementation before nationwide rollout.
Would mandatory independent verification increase development costs, particularly for small and medium-sized developers?
There will be a cost; we should not pretend otherwise. But the relevant question is whether that cost is proportionate to the risk being managed. If a buyer commits tens of millions of naira, the absence of verification could expose them to a much larger loss. For smaller developers, the guidelines should be proportionate, with the level of verification reflecting the size and risk of the project. The objective is to make verification affordable and predictable without weakening the independence of the assessment.
How could a credible construction verification and reporting framework restore investor confidence, particularly among diaspora Nigerians and institutional and international investors?
Investors need reliable information. Whether you are a Nigerian buying one apartment from abroad or an institution financing a large housing development, you want to understand where your capital is going and what supports the claims being made about the project.
A credible verification system gives you an independent record of construction progress and the conditions under which funds have been released. For diaspora buyers, that reduces dependence on the developer as the sole source of information. For institutional investors, it creates a stronger basis for assessing project performance and making financing decisions. Verification alone will not solve investor confidence, but it addresses a critical part: the quality of information about how construction capital is being used.
Assetrica describes itself as governance infrastructure for Africa’s real asset capital markets. How does its model differ from conventional property consultancy, and how will it preserve its independence while contributing to the proposed guidelines?
Conventional property consultancy advises on transactions. It helps buyers find properties, helps developers price them, and may provide valuations along the way. That work is important, but it operates within the existing governance arrangements.
What we do at Assetrica is different in kind. We provide independent verification and reporting that give investors, financiers and buyers confidence in how construction capital is used. A consultancy that earns fees from developers or from deal facilitation faces pressure, however subtle, to maintain those commercial relationships. Our model deliberately avoids that entanglement. The moment a verification provider’s judgement can be influenced by the party being verified, the entire system loses credibility.
On contributing to the guidelines while preserving independence: we have been open from the outset that we authored the memorandum. But authoring a policy proposal and administering its implementation are different roles. Our interest is in seeing a robust national framework in which any qualified, independent professional can participate. Independence must sit above any commercial interest, including ours.
While the guidelines are being developed, what should prospective off-plan buyers do to protect their investments?
Buyers must conduct proper due diligence before committing funds. Verify the developer’s track record, engage a qualified lawyer to review land titles and contractual terms, and make sure the agreement addresses delivery timelines, defaults and refunds. More importantly, insist on a payment structure tied to independently verified construction milestones, not calendar dates. For diaspora buyers especially, appointing an independent professional to monitor construction is critical. No promotional offer should take priority over protecting your investment.
What three policy interventions would help move Nigeria’s real estate market from a trust-based to a verifiable accountability system?
I believe three interventions are critical: mandatory independent verification before fund disbursement, transparent construction reporting, and enforceable accountability for developers and professionals. These are the principles behind Assetrica’s Memorandum 001. The priority now is translating the Council’s resolution into practical guidelines that protect buyers and give investors verifiable evidence of how their capital is being used.
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