Land Title Registration in 30 Days? The New Minister Demands

Registering your land helps you avoid or reduce litigation. It allows for easy transfer of interest especially after the land is sold out. It also helps the landowner use it as a surety to secure a loan. It removes the opportunity for fraud on innocent purchasers. Thus, a buyer, as well as the landowner, is protected against any unforeseen lawsuits in the future.

Unfortunately, getting your land registered can be a herculean task for many Ghanaians. As much as owning a property is a significant investment and comes at a high cost depending on where the land is situated, it is even more expensive trying to get your land registered. The length of time it takes a person to go through this process is stressful and discouraging. It can take you between one to three years to have your land registered.

 It is as a result of this that the current Minister for Lands and Resources is pushing for a reduction in the duration of land registration. He is requesting that the land title registration period be reduced to 30 days. This decision forms part of the new government’s effort to delivering on a campaign promise made to Ghanaians during the run up to the 2016 elections. According to the New Patriotic Party (NPP), it will "commit to ensuring that turnaround time for land registration is reduced to 30 working days." Therefore the government has charged the Lands Commission to sensitize its staff to work together so that they can achieve this target.
 

Consequently, reducing the duration of land title registration will impact positively on the economy of Ghana. It is expected that this action will help improve the property management services and eventually encourage both local and international investors to invest in the Ghanaian economy. The country will gain more revenue through investor’s contribution to the economy for the development of the country. Ultimately, acquiring a land in Ghana will be made very easy and eliminate the famous land litigations in Ghana.

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 Should the Ghana Land Commission facilitate or be in charge of land sales? Meaning every land deal should go through the agency?

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Financial Prospects For Housing - Expectations from The New Ghana Government on Housing - Part III

To wrap up on the series about housing in Ghana and the new government’s promises, finance is crucial to this discussion. The cost of housing forms a greater percentage of most households’ expenditure. And since housing is a necessity, it is very dear to most Ghanaians.

The source of funding a home has, in the past in Ghana, generally been limited to borrowing from friends and family and savings, until home financing institutions and banks started providing mortgage services to prospective house owners. Though this has brought relief in the housing sector, the Majority of homeowners in Ghana over the years contend with the growing cost of interest charged by banks on home loans. This is said to be one of the reasons accounting for the huge deficit in housing in Ghana.



To show commitment to the real estate industry in helping financial institutions provide financial assistance to ordinary Ghanaians, the current government outlined some interventions in its 2016 manifesto.

Accordingly, the new government seeks to facilitate the development of an active mortgage market to expand the mortgage loans to Ghanaians. Also, they will fully implement section 103 of the National Pensions Act 2008 (766) which stipulates pension benefits for housing of workers that, “A scheme may allow a member to use that member’s benefit to secure a mortgage for the acquisition of a primary residence.” This means that a person living on pension income can use that benefit to qualify for or obtain a mortgage.



New Ghana Government also added that they will work with identifiable groups like the Trade Union Congress (TUC), Ghana National Association of Teachers, Farmer’s Groups, etc. to facilitate the construction of homes for their members through the provision of the appropriate financing guarantees. These approaches will form part of the means to achieving the aim of developing funding schemes to assist home buyers in acquiring units and ultimately solve the rising fear of high cost of building or purchasing a home by the average Ghanaian.