Property
Registered title overlaid by tribal custom and conflict displacement
The Civil Code and Land Law provide for registered ownership, but tribal custom governs much rural land and the conflict has produced large-scale displacement and disputed occupation.
Key rules
- Jurisdiction — Land registry offices and the civil courts, with tribal arbitration handling a large share of rural disputes.
Governing law
- Civil Code, Law 14 of 2002 — property provisions
- Law 21 of 1995 on State Land and Real Estate
- Law 39 of 1991 on Real Estate Registration
In practice
Registration coverage was incomplete before 2014 and the conflict has made it worse, with records damaged or inaccessible and parallel administrations issuing documents in different areas. Tribal custom is not a residual influence in rural land but frequently the primary normative system, and customary arbitration resolves boundary and inheritance disputes that never reach a court. Mass displacement has created widespread secondary occupation of abandoned property, and waqf land holdings add a further layer. Any title question requires knowing which authority controls the area and which records survive.