Land Law and Conveyancing: Tenure, Title and Transfer
The plural land system
Gambian land law combines statute, received common law and equity, and customary and Sharia tenure. The Land Act 1991 (as amended) structures administration: it recognises freehold and leasehold titles, vests control of state land in the State and regulates its allocation, while customary tenure continues to govern much rural land. The Physical Planning and Development Control Act 2008 controls development. The examiner tests whether you can trace title and complete a transaction without a defect.
Core rules
- State leases are granted for fixed terms (commonly up to 99 years) and dealings in them require the consent provided for in the Act; freehold is available subject to statutory conditions.
- Customary rights are family or community based and are not equivalent to a registered lease; they may be converted or extinguished according to statute.
- Development requires planning permission; building without it exposes the owner to enforcement notices.
- A contract of sale should fix the price, deposit, completion date, vacant possession and title warranty, and make completion conditional on good title.
- Conveyancing steps: investigate title at the Deeds Registry, raise requisitions, prepare the deed of assignment or lease, execute and attest, stamp at the relevant revenue office, then register.
- Registered instruments take priority according to registration, so an unregistered transfer is vulnerable.
Worked example
A buyer pays a 10 per cent deposit for a plot. The seller holds only an unregistered customary right, and the buyer wants completion.
Reasoning: the seller cannot make a good statutory title because no registrable interest exists. The buyer should not complete. He may rescind and recover the deposit, or require the seller to regularise the title first through the statutory allocation and registration process, subject to consent and planning permission. Completion without a registered instrument would leave the buyer with an equitable claim only, susceptible to later registered dealings.
Traps
Assuming an unregistered customary right defeats a registered lease; forgetting consent, stamping and registration; applying English property statutes passed after 1888 as if they applied; and ignoring planning permission when the deed itself looks perfect.