Consumer Protection and the Purchase of Real Property Pendente Lite under the Doctrine of Lis Pendens: The Consumer’s Nightmare

Abstract

Part of our received law in the nature of common law and the principles of equity is the doctrine of lis pendens which operates to prevent the effective alienation and transfer of any property subject to litigation during the pendency of the suit. In its operation as has been applied by the courts in Nigeria, it does not matter whether the purchaser had notice, actual or constructive of the pendency of the litigation at the time of the purchase and it is enough that the suit was already pending in the sense that the case had been instituted and service of the processes effected on the vendor of the property before the transaction took place. The fate of that transaction is that the purchaser stands to lose the property should the vendor turn out to be the loser at the end of the litigation. The rigidity with which the doctrine is applied subjects the purchaser who, within the context of the law of consumer protection, is the consumer, to the unenviable state of uncertainty and the eventual risk of the purchase turning out to be a nullity by reason of the somewhat uncompromising effect of the doctrine. It therefore becomes necessary to examine the position of the purchaser pendente lite, as the consumer to see the extent, if any, to which the law as it stands, affords him any degree of protection and what could be done to better his lot having regard to the state of the law