The firm
Meridian Clay markets land, completed homes and part-built projects across Lagos, Abuja and Port Harcourt. Some of it we own. Most of it belongs to clients who asked us to represent them.
The property market here runs on trust that is frequently misplaced. Our answer to that is not a promise — it is a set of practices, listed below, that we hold to whether or not a particular deal survives them.
What we hold to
01
No listing goes up until someone here has seen the title and understood what it actually confers. A Certificate of Occupancy, a Governor's Consent and a family receipt are three very different things, and the listing says which one you are buying. Where a title has a defect we can live with, we say what it is.
02
Most of what we market belongs to other people. Every listing is labelled — our own stock, or marketed as agent. It costs us nothing to tell you and it tells you exactly whose interest we are representing in the negotiation.
03
An unfinished house is worth the finished value minus the cost of finishing it, minus the risk that the cost is higher than anyone thinks. We bring a quantity surveyor to every part-built listing and we will give you the take-off before you make an offer, not after.
04
If the ground is wrong for what you want to build, or the title will not survive a search, or the numbers do not work — we say so. The firm has been here long enough that the referral is worth more than the commission.