Property
Land Act 2020 consolidated the law and capped customary leaseholds for non-citizens
The Land Act 2020 (Act 1036) consolidated more than a dozen statutes. Around 80% of Ghanaian land is customary, held by stools, skins and families; the Constitution bars freehold grants to non-citizens and caps their leaseholds at 50 years, and the Act reinforces customary land secretariats and registration.
Key rules
- Jurisdiction — Lands Commission registers; High Court (Land Division) and the Judicial Committee of the House of Chiefs for stool land disputes.
Governing law
- Land Act, 2020 (Act 1036) — Consolidation; customary land secretariats; market-value compensation; anti-land-guard offences.
- Constitution of Ghana, 1992, arts 266-267 — No freehold in stool land; 50-year cap for non-citizens.
In practice
Act 1036 is a genuine consolidation, repealing the Conveyancing Decree, the Land Registry Act, the State Lands Act and others. It confirms the four customary tenure holders — stools, skins, clans and families — as allodial owners, with the state holding public and vested lands. Article 267(5) of the Constitution prohibits the creation of freehold interests in stool land, so even citizens generally take leaseholds; non-citizens are limited to 50-year leases under article 266. The Act requires customary land secretariats to keep records, provides for adjudication of boundary disputes, criminalises land guard activity, and sets out compulsory acquisition procedures with compensation at market value — an improvement on the previous regime. Registration operates through the Lands Commission, with title registration in designated districts and deeds registration elsewhere, and the persistence of two systems plus overlapping customary claims remains the main source of litigation.