The following are fast-developing areas where land is still cheap in Accra, Ghana:

Kasoa
Dodowa
Oyibi
Amasaman
Pokuase
Nsawam and Aburi stretch
Ningo Prampram
Berekosu

The land is the most disputed asset class in Ghana, especially in Accra. To put it more candidly, acquiring land in Accra can either “make you” or “break you”, in the sense that the process can be easy but also complicated. There is too much distrust. Most land sellers will market you like this “Buy litigation-free land, all documents intact” Take this with a pinch of salt. Not all but most land owners know their land is disputed but they won’t tell you until they receive payments from you. From there onwards you will be on the hook to deal with litigations that may pop up. I’m speaking from experience.

In Accra you have some lands around some places that the land is registered in a different person’s name but the land title is also in another person’s name how’s that possible you and I don’t know but everything is possible here. It sounds absurd, but it is just the way it is.

That said, despite the complexity and the hassle you have to go through, owning land in Ghana is still a great investment you will ever make. Why? Because the value of land or the prices of land in Accra keeps increasing.

If you are buying land in Ghana as a foreigner, I will suggest you first learn how to buy land in Ghana and the process involved. Most buyers want quick purchases without spending time to conduct due diligence on the land, and ownership documents.

You might be thinking perhaps only cheap land in Ghana have litigations. You are wrong. The most expensive lands in Ghana such as Cantonments, airport residential area, East Legon, Spintex, Labone, Ridge, Roman Ridge, Osu, are no exceptions. And where the price is high, the battle is fierce and ferocious.

I want to present you with two case studies of two individuals who lost their money to litigation. I think you will pick some brain, tips, and advice from their experience. It is better to learn from someone’s mistakes so you don’t make the same mistakes. For privacy reasons, names are withheld. That said, let’s delve into it.

CASE STUDY 1

“In the year 2016, I set out to buy land with my wife right in the greater Accra region East municipality to be precise and we got a parcel of land which looked quite good it was owned by a family who was living on one plot of land. It was two plus they were living on one plot and the other one was just bushes. It was even walled. Their father died intestate – without leaving a will. So it was their father who registered the land in his name.

Mistake no.1: Trust but verify

This family were Jehovah’s Witnesses and Jehovah’s Witnesses are people that I hold in very high regard because they are not like your average Church goer. They are people who take their faith very seriously.

At the same time, I also had another offer to buy land at Abokobi right next to the municipal assembly. And that one was selling for somewhere around USD $20,000 to $30 000. This one was also selling for the same price range. Looking back, this was about six years ago six years ago the dollar rate was around four to five to GHS.

Both Parcels of land were almost similarly priced but my wife suggested that because these people are Jehovah’s Witnesses we wouldn’t run into land litigation issues. Also, the fact that the person who recommended the land was also a good friend of her mom. So we had some certain level of assurance that nothing will go wrong. We thought the land will not give us issues plus they’ve been living on the land for a very long time.

Mistake no.2: Making Payment

As a newly married couple, we told them we don’t have a lot of money, we would want to pay in installments. So we started paying according to the agreed schedule and every month when my salary comes I’ll just push all my salary into the land payment and then at the same time we’re also working on the registration of the land.

I had somebody I knew personally at the lands commission who did a title search for us and said the land is really in their name and said we can go ahead and then do the rest of the processes. We’re doing the processes. We hired a surveyor who did the plotting and barcodes.

It took us about two years to complete the payment of the land. After completing it we now said we wanted to start developing it because really wanted to put up something for our family. I’ve always wanted to own a house I’ve always wanted to build and so we went and cleared the land. We even had the building designed and everything. We had a contractor who was ready, we also had a mason who was ready. We were given a bill of quantities and everything. We were really prepared to start the building process.

Then one day that we went and hire an excavator to come and clear the land because there were a lot of bridges and trees we were clearing we’re clear. Everything was going really well and then all of a sudden a bunch of people came around one of them was supposedly the chief of the area this Chief said we can’t continue the work that we are doing we need to first bring our documents.

I said no problem but I said he should go because the excavator guy has already started and we’ve paid for his work. I asked him to allow us to complete and then we’ll bring the documents later, there’s no issue of course I knew I’d done my legitimate due diligence. He said no, that there’s even another house close to mind that they’ve gone to demolish, and from there when they were breaking it then they had the sound of the excavator so they came to check. He continued that there’s a land issue or litigation against that parcel which is in court for the whole area. It was such a blow, it was news to me it was a shocker.

I didn’t have any worries I went to see the woman who sold the land and I said this is what happened when we were clearing the land. Whenever you start digging on your land then someone will come to harass you so that you give them money. But this one was different.

Court Ruling

Being a law-abiding citizen, I went to see the chief with the documents that I’d been working on for the last four months. When I gave it to him, he looked at the title and then he paused then he went for his documents and then he brought it he said, is this your certificate number? I checked the document he gave me and I checked my indenture and everything and it was the same. He said this land has been under contention for over 13 years and is still in court and there’s even an injunction on the land for it not to be sold or no work to be developed on it. Can you imagine how I felt? You could feel that shock. Then he now started bringing out documents, and court orders, and then he brought even a newspaper clip which showed a daily graphic which is like the major newspaper outlet in Ghana that there was a Court ruling in their favor. Actually, barely a week or two before I went to clear the land the court had ruled in their fever and so now what that meant was that the land that I had purchased belongs to someone else.

I went to see my lawyer my lawyer we went through the court’s documents, the proceedings, and everything was on the internet and I realized that it’s a legitimate claim that Chief was making the land actually belonged to him.

I want to see the woman who sold it to me. She was trying to give excuses but the long and short of it is that she didn’t tell me the truth when I was buying the land because she knew that there was litigation on the land. “You knew that this land had been to court several times but we’ve been paying you for two years and you never mentioned this to us?” How can people be so dishonest in this world how can people be so cruel? “We trusted you we felt that you people were Jehovah’s Witnesses and so we held you in high esteem but no, human beings are human beings everywhere and I don’t blame the Chiefs, but the people who sold as the land. I was mad I was disappointed. I was really hurt because I’ve been a genuine person I’ve given my best like I’ve tried to be somebody of Integrity all my life and this happens to me just because of the country I find myself in that system I find myself in

The hard truth is if you ever paid any money, you can kiss it goodbye. You are never going to get it back. So crazy when I gave that money to her she also went and invested it into microfinance around that time the government crack-down on these microfinance operations because they were mishandling people’s funds, people’s deposits and so it was one of the investment funds which was seized by the government and so they also didn’t get their money and that’s how crazy this whole thing was.”

CASE STUDY 2

“My name is Kofi (not his real name). I’ve been in the real estate space for quite some time not always in the country but I’m in touch with the real estate space -from acquiring lands to building properties and dealing with the not-so-nice aspects of real estate. We all know that land issues in Ghana are nothing new and that you have to deal with issues of multiple sales.

Land guards and litigation is a major problem but with time I found a way to navigate these Muddy Waters. You always have to smell the scent of the nut. You need to do some background research whenever you’re buying land. It’s not just about this official search but you need to ask people around the location you are interested in even if the people around the area know you send someone else let them do the background checks for you. Ask around what’s the Green Vine information like in terms of who’s this property for. Who has been coming around? What’s the history of this land? Things like that.

You can get it from people who stay close to the place and it’s not always about the official document because you can do your search and the report will show maybe Mr. Kwame or Mrs. Abena person is the owner of the land but sometimes you start building and these guys come from nowhere -the land guards. Some were from maybe family members of the same family who basically fighting for their own pound of flesh because when the land was sold they didn’t get their share. I’ve had the unpleasant experience of being in places where I wish for no one because again I had a I bought a piece of land half of the land was stolen from me and to be able to protect the remaining half I had to go and dine with land guards. I’ll take a step back that’s 2017 and then I see a piece of land I’m interested in. But, I’m like okay the place is still bushy so let me just give it some time. A few months later I decided to say okay finally let me get this one plot.

Mistake: Making payments before verifying

I got this piece of land and made half payments and then I said oh let me at least put something on the land, let me just protect the land but I was still hesitant. When I went to the land I saw some foundations like broken foundations. I said someone wanted to start the foundation. I sense something is just not right so I asked questions but I don’t get the right answers from the people. They gave me a different story as to why the foundation was there. I decided okay let me come back after some time.

So I came back after some time and I realized that someone has divided the land and built the foundation on one side. In fact, they had flowed their foundation. I went back to the guy who sold me the land he pretended as if he didn’t know anything was going on. He came to the site and one of the land guards also approached. These land guards have been chatting to beat the hell out of me if I didn’t leave the land. Luckily for me, I used to work with a guy who used to go to the gym with these land guards. I called him up and he told me that he knows them. He went to discuss the issue behind the scenes and they explained to me what happened. This is a transaction going wrong between the owner of the land and the land guards however they will not go and attack the owner they will attack me. I, the innocent person acquiring and now become the victim.

Cut your losses

If you want peace you have to forget about what you have paid and just focus on resolving because there’s one thing about buying land in Ghana, when your money goes it doesn’t come back. Most people don’t know this that’s the realistic truth. Time is very expensive money is also very expensive but your time you can never get back. By going to the court and following up on the legal processes it’s going to take you a minimum of about two years to get a resolution. Within that two years that your land would have been built upon.

Well, I’ve had cases where there’s an injection on the land but people still built they build in the middle of the night. You don’t see anything but before you realize they are doing a floor on the first floor. Based on what I’ve seen anything that involves courts try as much as possible to avoid it. Unless you are one of those people that like to fight in court for the fun of it. They want to fight for a right. If you know that you are not that strong always take the path of least resistance so if I go and spend about 50 000 GHS over this case in court by paying lawyers I can use that amount to settle these guys and have my freedom I’ll rather do it because at the end of the day even if the court pronounces some charges on them like they have to pay some fines and whatever they will not get the money for you because these guys like they have to say that when you see cash when they get the money like you need to see you buy the land like the next day the money is gone you know it only takes grace of God sometimes for you to get even part of your money back so it’s like the Lions then when food goes there it doesn’t come back you know you need to be realistic.”

Conclusion

You need to understand that having an indenture is not enough. In Ghana, it’s just a piece of paper. The way the land system is so screwed, you don’t buy land and watch it. Once you do all your checks everything is correct, and you can start building on it- at least do your foundation. Don’t waste money building walls. You could use that money to add to the foundation cost. It gives you a certain level of security. Take this from me, after running all your checks or due diligence and everything may be correct, but sometimes because the land seller feels you are “weak” you are not ready to build anytime sooner, they’ll let someone bypass you to come and build. Worst case scenario it’s okay, the person may try and refund some of your money to you if you are lucky enough or they’ll give you another plot of land somewhere. They play those tricks all the time.

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