As a Ugandan living abroad, sometimes it seems like the hassle to buy land back home is not worth it. Whether it is dealing with the wrong brokers and/or conmen land owners or asking family members to help that then end up botching up the process.
The purpose of this post is to help you through the prelim stages necessary for you to become the full-fledged owner of a plot of land that has a land title.
As a disclaimer, this will work best if you have someone on ground in Uganda to help you with the leg work involved in the process; either a trusted family member or friend or an appointed real estate lawyer.
Find Land on Sale
There’s many avenues to accomplish this. You could find the land yourself through an online broker or it could be a tip from one of your contacts. I bought my most recent plot after contacting an agent from an online real estate website. I found some plots of land that I could afford in areas I was interested in and reached out to the broker with my choices and asked about the availability. The broker went ahead to give me information on those plots and also recommend a particular estate in the area with similar prices. I then narrowed down my choices and organised a site visit by my proxy to see the plots I was interested in plus the one that the broker had recommended. Long story short, my representative agreed with the broker’s recommendations and we went ahead to arrange a meet with the owner of the land while I prepared the down-payment for the plot.
Verify All the Information about the Plot
Find out the true owner of the plot and the ownership history by talking to the LCs in the area. Talk to the locals/neighbours that you will encounter as well. If possible, have your representative go back without the broker to avoid the likelihood of the broker having hired other conmen to sell the story. Ask for a copy of the land title deed and do a search in the land registry office. If the land looks to be in a swamp or near it, contact the NEMA offices to ensure that this land is not within their purview. The land registry search report will give you the names of the owners of the property and all pertinent information regarding that land. Make sure this all matches with the information you’ve been given by the seller and/or broker. If a company owns part or all of the land, do a company search at the Registrar of Companies as well to verify that this is a legally incorporated entity. This report will tell you the shareholders and company directors of this property to verify true ownership, desire to sell and any pertinent conditions, caveats or liabilities. Additionally, organise for an independent land surveyor to verify the land size and shape as indicated by the title. The surveyor will find and show you the land boundaries (obusalosalo) and the marking stones (obuyinja).
Meet the Owner and Make Sales Agreement
With all the necessary due diligence done and with information at hand, your representative can meet the owner (or owner’s legal representative) or organise for you to talk to them by call to hush out any issues, negotiate a final price and draw up a sales agreement. The sales agreement should be witnessed by other parties like the broker and clearly state the legal name and contact information for the vendor (owner/s) of the land and yours, as the purchaser of the land. It’s okay to put your representative’s name in brackets after your name but your name should be on that agreement. The agreement also states the agreed upon price of the land and the pay schedule (if any) to complete purchase of the land and the transfer of title documents. The vendor should also warrant that there are no encumbrances (e.g unpaid land rates) attached to the land and that if any claims or disputes arise from prior to this agreement, they shall bear the costs owed to the purchaser.
Complete Purchase of Land, Transfer Documents and Pay All Necessary Fees and Duties
While I am ending this guide here, it’d be remiss of me if I didn’t mention that the purchase of land doesn’t end at the transfer of money to the landowner and acquisition of the original land title. There’s things like stamp duty to pay and registration of yourself as the new landowner in the land registry office to deal with. But that will be a post for another day.