Land Act 2020 (Act 1036)

The Act came into force at the end of December 2020. Its main changes for buyers and owners:

• Interests in land. It lists the interests Ghanaian law recognises: allodial title, common-law freehold, customary-law freehold, usufructuary interest, leasehold and customary tenancy.
• No new freeholds from customary land. A freehold can no longer be created out of stool, skin, clan or family land. Buyers of customary land receive leases.
• Non-citizens. Non-citizens cannot hold freehold, and their leases are capped; a company with a large foreign shareholding is treated as non-citizen. The limits are in the figures and on the non-citizen lease limit page.
• Customary Land Secretariats. Stools, skins, clans and families must run secretariats to record grants and report them to the Lands Commission and the Office of the Administrator of Stool Lands.
• Spousal consent. A spouse needs the other spouse's written consent to sell or deal with land acquired during the marriage, unless they agreed otherwise; see spousal consent.
• Consent to assign. It sets a deadline for lessors to answer requests for consent and treats silence as consent.
• Disputes. In registration districts, parties must try alternative dispute resolution before going to court.
• Crimes. Land guarding and fraudulent or multiple sales are criminal offences with prison terms; see the figures.

The Act also requires the Lands Commission to build a land information system for electronic conveyancing, which still depends on regulations.

What it replaced. The Act consolidated several older statutes on land, conveyancing and registration, including the title registration law, so most of the rules on interests, grants and registration are now in one place.

The Act applies nationwide. Some provisions bite only in title registration districts, such as the requirement to try ADR first. Elsewhere, deeds registration continues.