A victim of Real Estate Fraud has taken to Facebook to expose Elite Kingdom Real Estate Company.
****Long Read****
I just saw someone’s experience with a real estate company and I said let me share mine with you.
I think I made a post about it in 2022… But seeing the post triggered me again
People are still falling victim to these scammers so we need to keep sharing our experiences to help warn others.
In 2011… Soon after I completed National service and got my first job… I started making plans on how to secure my future.
My first thought was how to buy land and build a house. As most of you know by now, I have always been a lover of family and stability… and I was thinking of my future with my wife and kids.
Well… You all know how buying land from individuals and even chiefs can be problematic… Before you know it .. you and 12 other people own the same plot of land.
So when I saw that Elite Kingdom was selling estate lands in Takoradi… with the option to pay in installments over a period of time… And the opportunity to build your own house (according to their building plan) also over a period of time…
I said…
Why not..
This is a wonderful opportunity to avoid all this litigation and also get a nice gated community to raise my future family in.
And Elite Kingdom was not some obscure real estate company.. They were visible everywhere
Huge billboards.
Television and radio adverts with endorsement from some of the big celebrities at the time
Offices all over the country
And the owner was supposedly a man of God with his own church.
What could go wrong??
What other due diligence could we do at that point?
At the time.. I was taking a salary of 600gh a month
I took the option where I could pay 200gh a month.
The plot of land.. At that time was almost 8k.
The agreement was to pay for it over a 7 year period..
Now I was fresh out of uni…
Didn’t have any investment or real estate knowledge and was eager to make good use of my youth to get something down before I grow older.
Perfect victim.
On a 600 gh a month salary.. I paid the 7900 in 2 years. .. Something that was supposed to take me 7 years.
That means I was paying almost 350 gh a month… Over 50% of my salary.. For 24 months.
I think we were promised site visits after 50 or 80% payment.
I didn’t even bother because I knew I was paying rather quickly and will be ahead of the rest so surely… I will get the first couple of plot numbers.
Anyway… After I completed payment and started asking to see my land… They started giving me excuse after excuse.
The site inspection team are not around
Those of us who have finished paying are not a lot so they are waiting for a bigger number so we will all go together
This
That.
Then gradually… I noticed that the staff and equipment at the Takoradi office started dwindling until eventually… There was nobody there when you went there.
Then their signage at the office disappeared.
Then they stopped answering the phone.
Eventually I did some investigation and found their office in Tema.
I started going there too. Traveling all the way from Takoradi to Tema every month to follow up.
Then one staff member got tired of me wasting my time and told me that the truth was..
The Takoradi land never existed…
They started selling the land while negotiating with the chiefs…
But the sale never concluded because they were not prepared to pay what the chiefs were asking…
So we were just paying money for nonexistent lands.
He advised that I write a letter requesting that I wanted my land transferred to Accra because as for the money… Lie Lie… I won’t get.. I will spend time and money I don’t have.
I wrote the letter…
After chasing formonths.. I finally found their Achimota office because the Tema office also disappeared.
They took my letter.. Took me to their estates in Dodowa and gave me a “plot”
Now after that.. They said I needed to pay some more money for the indenture to be made in my name.
At this point.. I was tired of paying money so I asked further about my building plan and permit.
That was when they told me that contrary to what I was made to believe… I will not be able to build by myself with my own workers.
I had to have them build it for me.
2 bedroom house… They said 150,000 USD
That was when I stopped following up and spending more money on it because where was I going to get 150,000 USD at that time pay them.
Any way.. That’s how I lost 2 and a half years worth of wages and time.
It was a big blow to me financially..And I struggled a lot to get back on my feet after that.
I don’t think I ever recovered from that financial loss…
But I have made peace with it…
I lost that investment.
But I will never advice anyone to buy from these so called real estate companies ever again.
And if you decide to… Please be careful.
There was not much we could have done at that time… There was plenty of “evidence” to show that this was a legitimate business..
But we got scammed anyway.
Y’all be safe out there.
✌
Sometimes people think we make up these stories… so I’m attaching proof. I have all my receipts and documents till this day
