National Land Titling Programme
How to Acquire
Your Title
Process for
Applicants
Under the 7th National Development Plan, the Government of Zambia set out a target of issuing 5 million land titles on State Land through National Systematic Land Titling SLT by 2021.
MLG Zambia partnered with the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources to establish, test, and implement a process for a systematic land titling program and deliver 50,000 titles in Lusaka.
The process in SLT included public meetings, adjudication, verification and corrections, and the issuance of the certificate of title.
MLG used a mobile application that included pre-vectorized high-resolution property images, efficient house-to-house data and signature gathering from homeowners, community verification, and machine learning to validate data accuracy, MLG rapidly gathered the necessary documentation for streamlined land titling on 50,000+ parcels.
Following the success of this pilot, the Lusaka City Council selected MLG to lead its property titling program and to develop and deploy a Land Governance Platform.
Imagery Acquisition
The First stage of implementation is the aerial photography and survey stage. MLG Zambia will be flying drones or airplanes, or using satellite images to map out in detail all the area features on the ground.
STEP 1
Pre-vectorization
These acquired images contain details of homes, roads, utility services, public or forested areas, and will be used to do proper mapping and identification of upcoming property lines to connect to your title deed. We will identify the lines of your own property and those of your neighbors until we have fully mapped out the community.
Step 2
Enumeration
This is the part where YOUR PARTICIPATION occurs in the titling programme. Enumerators will use our Systematic Land Titling application on Tablets to collect information and manage the enumerating process together with you, so you understand the process every step of the way.
Step 3
Owner Participation Here:
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Invitation to Treat
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Offer Letter
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Land Record Card
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Occupancy Licence
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Utility Bill
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Council Rate Bill
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Letter of Sale
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Deed of Gift
1. Enumerator checks if landowner has the correct documentation which is their National Registration Card (NRC) and any of the following documents as proof of ownership:
2. Enumerator checks property boundaries
3. Landowners details and documents are captured
4. Other beneficiaries are included and captured, these could be spouses, children over the age of 21 or any other beneficiaries to the property
5. Images of the property are taken
6. Landowners append their signatures
Data Review
After Enumeration, field enumerators will take this collected data make any adjustments as necessary after the in-person meeting and verifications with property owners.
Textual data (like your proof of ownership documents) are then attached digitally to each property parcel for easy and permanent retrieval at any time.
Step 4
Community
Verification
The next stage is also YOUR PARTICIPATION with community verification of the title data up to this point. The MLG Zambia field team will return to a central location to have the collected information reviewed and subject to confirmation by property owners.
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Property owners will either sign-off on the information (such as demarcation lines and ownership whether individual or joint), or dispute for resolution the recorded information, in readiness for the offer letter production.
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For transparency, land use and verification maps are displayed for public awareness. All owners will see the respective property lines of the community and have general knowledge of the community land use.
Step 5
Owner Participation Here:
Government
Approval
General plans are delivered from MLG to Ministry for review. The documents are reviewed by the examiner, government surveyor, land officer and chief land officer, and finally the commissioner of land.
The documents are approved or rejected for revision and approval, and then subsequent spot checking is done for assurance.
After approvals, offer letters are issued to the people, and prepared for payment collection to receive the officially recorded title deed.
Step 6
Pay the TITLE FEE
The final step to complete before you can be issued your Title Deed is to make your full payment. Once full payment has been made you will be issued your copy for title of your property, of which the ministry will also keep their copy for reference. With this Title you will have full security of your land asset, a potential to transact, and an increased value for your land. The gains for you, your family, and your next generation are endless.
Final Step
FAQs
Why are some sections in demarcation areas left out in the titling process?
The main reasons attributed to the omitted sections are: existing ministry titles, way leaves, environmentally protected areas and land where government facilities and installations are sitting.
What is the difference between a council title and a ministry one?
Council titles are as valid as the Ministry of Lands titles. However, in some cases council titles are not accepted by lending institutions as they prefer the Ministry of Lands titles. The Ministry of Lands has embarked on the complete harmonization of titles and wants all land titles to be under one land register to avoid double allocation and duplications.
What happens to people who started making payments towards their ministry titles before the SLT programme?
They can choose to continue with the same process they started or take advantage of this current systematic one because it is faster. If a client decides to take the systematic way, they would have to make sure that the sporadic process is discontinued by surrendering the offer letter and informing the ministry in order to avoid duplication.
Do we still continue paying council rates after getting ministry of lands titles?
Yes, landowners have to continue paying property rates to the council for their properties.
We just paid in full for council titles, do we have to pay again for ministry of lands titles?
Since the titling programme is run by the Ministry, and if a land-owner opts to obtain the Ministry of Lands title, they must pay for the process to the Ministry for them to obtain the title. The Ministry seeks to consolidate all land documentation in one organized national land registry system for uniformity and proper land management.
When will farm blocks be captured?
It will be communicated. For now a specific date is not known.
When will the ones who were not captured in areas now getting offer letters be attended to?
Any time soon, we will communicate to everyone through the MLG communication team
How do payments work in receiving my title?
Once the offer letter is issued, you have 3 years to convert your offer letter to official Title Deed. In order to convert, a full payment must be made. *Down payments are no longer accepted to receive Title.
Why are you not covering established high cost areas such as Nkana East, Riverside and Ibex?
Those areas are mostly planned and a good number of them opt for the sporadic route through which they have managed to secure their titles.
Will there be a discount for those who are already on council title when paying for a ministry title?
No, there is no discount because you will pay for a new Certificate of Title.
Why can't one get a title if they own a property yet are below the age of 21?
It's by law that only land owners who are eligible to appear on Certificate of Title must be above 21 years of age.
Why doesn't your system provide for holding in trust for minors during the capturing phase?
It's by law that only land owners who are eligible to appear on the Certificate of Title must be above 21 years of age. However, landowners can visit any ministry of lands facility to access such services upon request.
Can I still be captured for the title if I am outside the demarcation area, yet willing to pay?
No, we can't capture unless the area is approved by the Council.
Why are additions/removals/corrections taking so long?
We are improving the system, soon everything will be done fast.
Why can't we change ownership at the offer letter stage?
We can change, that is where we encourage landowners to visit MLG if there is a mistake on their offer letter to change details. We strongly encourage owners to participate at verification stages of the titling process to ensure correctness of their receiving documents.
Why do we have limited payment platforms?
We are working on the system so that landowners can pay using different payment methods such as Airtel, MTN, and Zanaco mobile money platforms.