Section 3: Types of Land Tenure in Uganda - Your Rights
3.Incidents of forms of tenure
(1)Customary tenure is a form of tenure—
(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.
(2)Freehold tenure is a form of tenure deriving its legality from the Constitution and its incidents from the written law which—
(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—
(i)using and developing the land for any lawful purpose;
(ii)taking and using any and all produce from the land;
(iii)entering into any transaction in connection with the land, including but not limited to selling, leasing, mortgaging or pledging, subdividing, creating rights and interests for other people in the land and creating trusts of the land;
(iv)disposing of the land to any person either as a gift inter vivos or by will.
(3)For the avoidance of doubt, a freehold title may be created which is subject to conditions, restrictions or limitations which may be positive or negative in their application, applicable to any of the incidents of the tenure.
(4)Mailo tenure is a form of tenure deriving its legality from the Constitution and its incidents from the written law which—
(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.
(5)Leasehold tenure is a form of tenure—
(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.
Plain English Summary
If you own land in Uganda, your rights depend on the type of tenure that applies to your land. The four main types are customary, freehold, mailo, and...
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