Freehold

Ghana's Land Act 2020 lists six interests in land. At the top is the allodial title, held by stools, skins, clans, families or the State. Below it come two kinds of freehold, then usufructuary interests, leases and customary tenancies.

Common-law freehold comes from a transaction under English-derived common law. It lasts indefinitely and can be inherited, sold or mortgaged, subject to the State's rights and any customary rights over the land.

Customary freehold comes from a customary transaction, such as a customary grant, gift or sale, usually to members of the land-owning group. It also lasts indefinitely and passes by inheritance, but it remains subject to the rights of the stool, skin, clan or family that holds the allodial title.

No new freeholds from customary land. The Land Act prohibits creating a freehold in stool, skin, clan or family land, and the Constitution already barred freeholds in stool land. Since most land in Ghana is customary land, a buyer from a chief or family today receives a lease, not a freehold. Freeholds that already exist can still be inherited and transferred.

Non-citizens. Under Article 266 of the Constitution, no one who is not a Ghanaian citizen can hold a freehold, and any document that tries to give one is void. Freeholds that non-citizens held when that rule began were turned into leases. A non-citizen's lease is also capped; the limit is in the figures.

What buyers actually get. Adverts sometimes say "freehold" or "outright" when the seller means only that the price is paid in full. Most plots and houses for sale come with a lease, often for the longer citizen term in the figures. Read the indenture: it states the interest granted and its term.

The rules are national. They apply in the same way to stool land, skin land in the north, and clan and family land, so new grants from any of them are leases.