The National Land Authority (NLA) has said there is a need for a mechanism such as a guarantee fund to protect good-faith plot purchasers in case their rights are negatively affected by court decisions involving ownership disputes.
A good-faith land buyer or purchaser is person who buys a plot without knowing that someone else has a claim to it or any problems with the seller's ownership. As such, they are considered innocent in property transactions.
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Sylvain Muyombano, the acting Head of Land Administration Department at NLA made the observation on November 13, in Parliament during a session with the Chamber of Deputies' standing Committee on Land, Agriculture, Livestock, and Environment. The session assessed the implementation of the 2021 law governing land in Rwanda.
Elaborating on the issue, Muyombano cited a case in Kamonyi District where members of one family shared land as heirs, and each one registered their plot and got a separate title.
Then, they sold the plots, and years later, disputes erupted in the family, with claims that some of the members did not get their share of the land in question, Muyombano said, adding that the case was taken to court - involving succession right claims by four people.
He told lawmakers that the land was registered to more than 40 people [buyers], and that the court made a ruling that the succession be reviewed accordingly.
The court judgment was executed the 40 buyers lost their ownership of the land, despite not being part of the legal process, he pointed out.
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Muyombano pointed out that the case resulted in disputes involving more than 40 people until today.
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Muyombano said that the affected people came to the land authority for support, and were advised to go to court to lodge a complaint that they were affected by a case to which they were not party.
Such a case points to instances where "a person who bought land becomes a victim of what went wrong at a given time in the past, or disputes based on the history of Rwandans, because we have a long land history," he said.
A buyer affected by a court decision in a case involving an immovable property for which a title or ownership decision was issued by the government, should have their right protected such as through compensation, he suggested, indicating that a solution is possible.
"If at least Rwf100 would be deducted from any land service offered or land-based tax - charged on every plot - so that it is put into a guarantee fund," he said.
He said that the money would be deducted from the land tax and land service charges. He added that that would be used to ensure that a person who should be protected by the law does not become a victim of actions for which they are not responsible.
He suggested that while executing a court judgment, the relationship between a person who won a case and that of the person who has bought the land should be indicated.
