Angola
Department
Name
Position
Email: aa.com
Telephone: 123
Website: www.com
All land officially belongs to the State, passed by the Law on Land and Urban Planning in 2004. But, most urban and some non-urban land can be privately owned through long-term leases that can be renewed from the Angolan government. If you buy or register land over 10,000 hectares, you will need approval from the Council of Ministers.
It takes about 6-11 months to register property and fees for registering average 3.2% of property value. You will need to wait five years after you have purchased the land if you want to sell it afterwards. There are government regulations for building on land.
It is crucial to pay special attention to the property documentation before entering into any contract. In the first place, the chain of title to a right over property must be carefully checked before entering into any contract relating to property. This evaluation should be done by obtaining and analysing the following documents: An up-to-date land certificate (certidão predial) issued by the Land Registry in which the name of the seller appears as the current owner of the property; Property record or certificate of the content of the register issued no more than one year ago by the tax authorities, proving who is the current beneficiary of the income from the property; Document proving the lawful acquisition of the right by the transferor (public deed, order of release from confiscation, etc.); Property location plan, preferably certified by the competent administrative authority. In the case of acquisition of a piece of land, the person acquiring the land must also check the urban development plans and any other regulations relating to the use of the land. In order to do this, it is necessary to request specific information from the appropriate municipal authorities and from the Provincial Government Urban Management Services.
Angola, like Mozambique, inherited its legal framework from the Portuguese Civil Code, which was not
based on a traditional African concept of community occupation under customary law. With Portuguese
settlement, large areas of land were appropriated for and incorporated into the colonial cadastre (the
formally surveyed and officially recorded land boundaries of the land
concessions granted by the state).
After winning independence from Portugal in 1975 the new Angolan
government, influenced by socialist principles, affirmed the constitutional
role of the state as the owner of all land. The post-independence constitution
thus declared the state to be the owner and manager of land. Laws
published in 1991 and 2004 adopted the colonial cadastre as the basis of land
titling.
The concept of customary tenure was reintroduced as part of the 2004 Land
Law (Law 9/04). In particular, Article 34 stipulates that the state can grant,
inter alia, (a) private property rights to urban land and (b) useful customary
domain to rural communities. These are important steps towards assisting
poor people to secure tenure, and in relation to this case, in urban areas in particular.
The 2004 Land Law stipulates that concessions of urban land up to 1,000 m² may be authorised by the
Municipal Administration, while the Provincial Governor must approve concessions of land areas of up to
50,000 m². Concessions of areas larger than 50,000 m² may only be authorised by the Minister of Urbanism
and Construction.
In December 2010, an Executive Programme for the Good Governance of Luanda was launched. With
regard to land occupation and use, the Programme introduced a number of institutional changes at the
level of the municipalities to improve urban management. The Programme affirmed the principle that
informal settlements would be considered by the State as illegal land occupation. In this way government
sought to “strengthen the idea of the State’s authority”, since illegal occupations were seen to result
in high social, political and economic costs to the State in its efforts to improve urban management or
install social services in the city. To address the problem of illegal occupations, the Angolan government
had earlier adopted an ambitious policy of building one million homes country-wide before the 2012
elections. It linked to this its intention to eliminate much of the musseques (informal slum settlements) in
the process.
In 2012 the government also announced the opening of a ‘one-stop shop’ for property registration,
similar to the already existing office for company registration. This kind of entity is intended to
concentrate diverse services and facilitate the rapid acquisition of title deeds, with a view to simplifying
procedures and reducing the transaction costs for users.
This introductory section has provided a brief account of land ownership and management in the formal sector and some of the steps taken to regulate informal or even illegal occupation and use of urban land. The next section examines this informal land sector and, in particular, how poor people access, hold and trade urban land in Luanda.
Website: http://www.saangola.org/ Postal Address: Caixa Postal 6212, Luanda, ANGOLA Street Address: Rua Premio Dubai, Condominio Ouro Verde, Municipio Da Samba, Sector ZRGA, Luanda, ANGOLA Phone: 002 442 22460732