Can We Really Trust The Ghana Lands Commission?

If you are looking into buying land to build your dream home or to set up a business in Ghana, you might be wondering what many land buyers like yourself do, and that is if you can really trust the Ghana Lands Commission to help you acquire litigation free land of your choice, as well as provide you with all the necessary documentation that transfers ownership of the land completely to you. This article does not provide you with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer to the question. What this article does is to present to you the pros and cons of the Ghana Lands Commission and why you MUST use them during and after acquiring your land in Ghana.

The Ghana Lands Commission: Pros and Cons

The Ghana Lands Commission currently operating under the Lands Commission Act 2008, is mandated by Article 258 of the 1992 Constitution of Ghana to manage all lands, be it public, stool, family or private lands in Ghana. It will interest you to know that 78% of all lands in Ghana are stool lands; meaning they belong to the chiefs and their communities and not the State. That said, as a land buyer you will be presented with the following pros and cons when dealing with the Commission.

Pros

• You can obtain all genuine documentations to your land by dealing with the Commission for which reason they have offices in all ten regions of the country to make themselves accessible.
• Documentation from the Commission protects your rights and defends you against powerful chiefs, encroachers and scammers who may try to reclaim or resell your land to inspecting buyers.
• Transfer of ownership of lands is made easier when you have documentation from the Commission.

Cons

• You invariably have to travel to six to eight other agencies e.g. Office of the Administrator of Stool Lands, Survey Department, etc. before you can obtain necessary documents from the Commission. This indeed is frustrating and resource consuming.
• The division of tasks between the other agencies and the Commission has resulted in the fragmentation of responsibilities and lack of coordination in the work of the latter. Subsequently, it can take over a month to receive your land documents unless you offer tips to the staff who attend to you.
• You can fall victim to losing your land without compensation ‘if’ the Commission under their mandate considers your land belonging to someone else or the State. This can occur if you do not deal with genuine staff in all the other agencies of the commission for example, the Land Title Registry before acquiring your land.

This last demerit is the more reason why you need to use the Lands Commission and its counterpart agencies when you intend to purchase any land in Ghana. They have shortcomings but can be trusted to protect your rights and defend you against powerful chiefs, encroachers and dubious people who may try to reclaim or resell your land in any event.