Leasehold

When you buy land or a house in Ghana, you almost always buy a lease. The landowner, whether a stool, skin, family or the State, keeps the underlying title and grants you the right to hold the land for a set number of years. The lease is set out in an indenture, which must be stamped and then registered or recorded at the Lands Commission.

Lease terms. The term is agreed in the lease. Ghanaian citizens are usually granted the longer term in the figures. A non-citizen can never hold a lease longer than the cap in the figures at any one time.

What you pay. Lessors often take a lump sum when the lease is granted and then a yearly ground rent for the land. The lease says how much ground rent is due and to whom.

Conditions. Leases usually include covenants: what the land may be used for and a rule that you need the lessor's consent before you sell, sublet or mortgage. On state land that consent comes from the Lands Commission; on customary land, from the allodial owner.

Buying an existing lease. If you buy a house from its current owner, you take over the remainder of their lease, not a fresh term. A house on a lease granted long ago may have far fewer years left than a new grant.

Renewal. Under the Land Act 2020, a Ghanaian leaseholder has a right to renew at the end of the term, but renewal is not free: the new price is negotiated with the lessor and should take account of improvements you made. A non-citizen has no automatic right to renew unless the lease provides for it. In either case you go back to the original grantor, or their successors, before the term ends.

The rules are national. Who grants the lease differs: a stool or skin, a clan or family, or the State through the Lands Commission on state land.