How to Buy a Land in Ghana

Making important purchases in life is never quite so simple, one of such hard purchases is buying land. Land purchase is no walk in the park, the entire process is riddled with legal requirements, rules and regulations and the bureaucracy of public administration. Being in Ghana does not ease up these tedious processes. While it may seem daunting such awareness is necessary to make you armour and suit up for the task of land purchase. As stated, legal requirements and regulations are characteristic of the land purchase process. This is why it is always best to engage a trusted lawyer or a consultant to purchase your land for you; but here are five key and simple steps if you can’t afford any.

Visit the place yourself

Go to the land and make sure you actually like the location, check for roads, amenities etc: Though the requirement for physical presence does sound so pleasing in this era of digitized convenience. There are just some things that cannot be done online and this is one of them. Undertaking a physical inspection, most preferably with an expert or trusted friend can help gather critical data to make informed decisions. To do this, have a list of all your preferences, plus critical markers that a location should have such as; safety, traffic, amenities and roads. This will help make your physical inspection productive and worthwhile.

More Research

We want to make an informed decision and so we cannot overemphasize this enough. Research! Research! Research! How? Get a surveyor to get the location coordinates and do a search in the lands commission data. This is doing research by going to the expert source, it brings about data that you can trust. Enough data to take action.

Take Guided Action

Guided by the data you collected from the land commission data site, you take the next course of action. That is, check if the name of the search matches the name of the seller and then you can proceed to make an official barcode to be used for the indenture

Negotiate

Now you know what you want, you have made your informed decision and taken the pliminary stages to act on it. Negotiation is how you make sure that you are not being cheated out of a good deal. This does not make the seller an enemy it just makes them a business partner. Having done your research negotiation should be easy, direct and firm but not immovable. When you come to a mutually beneficial deal, ensure that a land indenture is drawn up and signed. What is a land indenture? It is a legal contract between two parties, particularly for indentured labour or a term of apprenticeship but also for certain land transactions. Such documentation helps legally seal the deal. Once indenture is made, negotiate to pay part payment whiles you proceed to title land at lands commission

Again on Physical Presence

Secure land by showing presence. Build a wall/ take possession of the land. This is a classic ‘beware of dogs’ sign to stop intruders and encroachers from stealing or misusing your land.