Property
About 97% customary land, unregistered and inalienable
Roughly 97% of PNG's land is customary land held by clans under custom, outside the registered title system entirely. Only about 3% is alienated land available for ordinary dealing.
Key rules
- Deadline — State leases are granted for terms up to 99 years
- Deadline — Dealings in alienated land must be registered to take effect against third parties
Governing law
- Land Act 1996 (s. 10)
- Land Registration Act 1981
- Land Groups Incorporation Act 1974
- Constitution 1975 (s. 53 (protection from unjust deprivation))
In practice
The 97% figure is the single most important fact in PNG property law. Customary land cannot be sold to non-citizens and is generally not registered, so ownership is proved by genealogy and custom rather than by a title search — which makes competing clan claims a routine feature of project work. Access is achieved through mechanisms such as lease-leaseback, where the State leases land from customary owners and leases it back to a developer, and through Incorporated Land Groups under the 1974 Act. The lease-leaseback route was heavily abused in the Special Agricultural and Business Leases affair, which a commission of inquiry found had transferred vast areas without genuine landowner consent; several were cancelled. Any land transaction here demands verification of both the group's authority and the history of the instrument.