"alienated" means alienated by the grant of an estate in freehold or leasehold which is registered under the Registration of Titles Act, and "unalienated" shall be interpreted accordingly;

"association" means a communal land association established by section 15;

"authorised undertaker" means a person or authority authorised or required by law to execute public works;

"board" means a district land board established by Article 240 of the Constitution and referred to in section 57;

"bona fide occupant" and "lawful occupant" have the meanings assigned to them in section 29;

"certificate of customary ownership" means a certificate issued under section 4;

"certificate of occupancy" means a certificate issued under section 34;

"Commission" means the Uganda Land Commission established by Article 238 of the Constitution and referred to in section 47;

"committee" means a land committee established by section 65;

"community" means an indigenous community of Uganda as provided for in the Third Schedule to the Constitution, or any clan or subclan of any such indigenous community communally occupying, using or managing land;

"currency point" has the value assigned to it in the Schedule to this Act;

"customary tenure" means a system of land tenure regulated by customary rules which are limited in their operation to a particular description or class of persons the incidents of which are described in section 3;

"District Land Tribunal" means the District Land Tribunal established under section 75;

"former controlling authority" means the Uganda Land Commission or a designated authority in existence before the coming into force of the Constitution;

"former designated authority" means a city council, municipal council, town council or town board established in a designated urban area;

"former public land" means land previously administered under the Public Lands Act, 1969, prior to the coming into force of the Land Reform Decree, 1975;

"freehold land tenure" means the holding of registered land in perpetuity subject to statutory and common law qualifications the incidents of which are described in section 3;

"gazetted" means published in the official Gazette by either a statutory instrument or a legal notice issued by the responsible Minister;

"leasehold land tenure" means the holding of land for a given period from a specified date of commencement, on such terms and conditions as may be agreed upon by the lessor and lessee, the incidents of which are described in section 3, and includes a sublease;

"mailo land tenure" means the holding of registered land in perpetuity and having roots in the allotment of land pursuant to the Uganda Agreement, 1900 and subject to statutory qualifications, the incidents of which are described in section 3;

"mediator" has the meaning assigned to it in section 86;

"Minister" means the Minister responsible for lands;

"public works" means the construction of railways, roads, canals or airfields; the placing of telegraph lines and electric lines, and the erection of supports for those lines; the laying of sewer and water pipes; the construction of drains; the prospecting, exploration, mining and extraction of petroleum resources; the construction of dams and hydropower plants; the establishment of meteorological and water quality stations; the construction of water and sewerage treatment plants, storage reservoirs and pumping stations; and any other works, construction of public buildings and other public institutions, declared by statutory instrument to be public works, the construction of buildings for public use, such as hospitals and universities, for the purposes of section 74; and any other works ancillary or incidental to the foregoing;

"recorder" means the recorder established by section 69;

"Register Book" means the book kept by the Registrar of Titles in accordance with the Registration of Titles Act;

"registered owner" means the owner of registered land registered in accordance with the Registration of Titles Act;

"registrable interest" means an interest registrable under the Registration of Titles Act, namely, mailo, freehold, leasehold and subleasehold, but includes a certificate of customary tenure and a certificate of occupancy;

"Registrar of Titles" means the registrar of titles appointed under the Registration of Titles Act;

"road" means a road reserve as defined in the Roads Act;

"tenant by occupancy" means the lawful or bona fide occupant declared to be a tenant by occupancy by section 31;

"third party right" means a right, interest, privilege or liberty which a person has or possesses, either indefinitely or for life or for a lesser period under customary law, common law or equity to use or occupy for a specific purpose or for a specific period all or part of the land of a landowner or to prevent a landowner from exercising any right, interest, privilege or liberty in, on, under or over his or her land, and includes but is not limited to an easement, a profit a prendre, a usufructuary right, a restrictive covenant, a right arising out of a share cropping agreement, a right of a person as a member of a group to go on to and to gather and use the fruits of communally owned land or a right to use land which a spouse may acquire by virtue of marriage, but does not include a lease or sublease;

"urban area" means an area gazetted as an urban area by the Minister responsible for urban affairs.

(a)customary;

(b)freehold;

(c)mailo; and

(d)leasehold.

(a)applicable to a specific area of land and a specific description or class of persons;

(b)subject to section 27, governed by rules generally accepted as binding and authoritative by the class of persons to which it applies;

(c)applicable to any persons acquiring land in that area in accordance with those rules;

(d)subject to section 27, characterised by local customary regulation;

(e)applying local customary regulation and management to individual and household ownership, use and occupation of, and transactions in, land;

(f)providing for communal ownership and use of land;

(g)in which parcels of land may be recognised as subdivisions belonging to a person, a family or a traditional institution; and

(h)which is owned in perpetuity.

(a)involves the holding of registered land in perpetuity or for a period less than perpetuity which may be fixed by a condition;

(b)enables the holder to exercise, subject to the law, full powers of ownership of land, including but not necessarily limited to—

(a)involves the holding of registered land in perpetuity;

(b)permits the separation of ownership of land from the ownership of developments on land made by a lawful or bona fide occupant; and

(c)enables the holder, subject to the customary and statutory rights of those persons lawful or bona fide in occupation of the land at the time that the tenure was created and their successors in title, to exercise all the powers of ownership of the owner of land held of a freehold title set out in subsections (2) and (3) and subject to the same possibility of conditions, restrictions and limitations, positive or negative in their application, as are referred to in those subsections.

(a)created either by contract or by operation of law;

(b)the terms and conditions of which may be regulated by law to the exclusion of any contractual agreement reached between the parties;

(c)under which one person, namely the landlord or lessor, grants or is deemed to have granted another person, namely the tenant or lessee, exclusive possession of land usually but not necessarily for a period defined, directly or indirectly, by reference to a specific date of commencement and a specific date of ending;

(d)usually but not necessarily in return for a rent which may be for a capital sum known as a premium or for both a rent and a premium but may be in return for goods or services or both or may be free of any required return;

(e)under which both the landlord and the tenant may, subject to the terms and conditions of the lease and having due regard for the interests of the other party, exercise such of the powers of a freehold owner as are appropriate and possible given the specific nature of a leasehold tenure.

(a)determine, verify and mark the boundaries of all interests in the land which is the subject of the application;

(b)demarcate rights of way and other easements over the land the subject of the application and any adjacent land which benefit or burden or are reputed to benefit or burden any such land or which it considers will be necessary for the more beneficial occupation of any such land in respect of which an application may be granted or any adjacent land;

(c)adjudicate upon and decide in accordance with and applying customary law any question or matter concerning the land referred to it by any person with an interest in land which is the subject of an application or any land adjacent to it, including the question of whether the customary law applicable to the land the subject of the application recognises individual rights to the occupation and use of land and, if so, subject to what conditions and limitations;

(d)record that if any person has, or two or more persons have, exercised rights under customary law over the land the subject of the application that should be recognised as ownership of that land, that person or those persons, as the case may be, shall, prirna facie, be entitled to be issued with a certificate of customary ownership and in the case of two or more persons, the shares of each person and the nature of their ownership;

(e)if any persons have exercised any right over the land or any part of it or are entitled to any interest in the land or part of it not amounting to ownership, including any lease, right of occupation or use, charge, pledge or other encumbrance whether by virtue of customary law or otherwise, hereafter in this Act referred to as a third party right, record the nature, incidents and extent of that third party right and the persons entitled to the benefit of it;

(f)advise the board upon any question of customary law;

(g)safeguard the interests and rights in the land which is the subject of the application of women, absent persons, minors and persons with or under a disability;

(h)take account of any interest in land in respect of which, for any reason, no claim has been made; and

(i)exercise such other functions as may be prescribed.

(a)hear evidence which would otherwise not be admissible in a court of law;

(b)call evidence of its own motion;

(c)use evidence contained in any official record or adduced in any other claim;

(d)refer any matters to any customary institution habitually accepted within the area as an institution with functions over land for its advice and, where relevant, use, with or without adaptations and additions, customary procedures relating to the settlement of disputes over land recognised and in general use within the community where the land is situated; and

(e)generally, determine its own procedures.