Land law in Uganda is not English 1925 with tropical weather. Article 237 of the Constitution vests land in the citizens of Uganda, to be held under four tenure systems: customary, freehold, mailo, and leasehold. The Land Act then builds the institutions — District Land Boards, the Uganda Land Commission, and recorders — around those four.
Land Law · Lecture notes
Four Tenures: How Land Is Held in Uganda
Customary, freehold, mailo, and leasehold — what Article 237 actually did, and why mailo occupants still decide real files.
Hornbook Faculty4 min read0 reads
Most land in the country is still held customarily. It may be communal or individualised according to the community’s rules. A Certificate of Customary Ownership can be obtained from the District Land Board; it is evidence of title and can be mortgaged or converted to freehold, subject to the Act. Custom that denies women access to land will struggle against the Constitution and the Land Act’s consent rules on family land.
Freehold and leasehold
Freehold is the closest analogue to an estate in fee simple: perpetual, registered, alienable. Leasehold is time-limited, derived from a landlord (often the state, via ULC, for land in urban areas and for non-citizens). Non-citizens cannot own freehold or mailo; they take leases not exceeding 99 years. That restriction is constitutional, not a registry preference.
Mailo
Mailo is the distinctive Buganda tenure: registered ownership in square miles, historically layered over occupants. The Land Act protects lawful and bona fide occupants. A bona fide occupant is, in outline, a person who had occupied and utilised land in good faith, unchallenged, for at least twelve years before the 1995 Constitution came into force. Occupants pay a nominal ground rent; eviction is tightly controlled. Any land problem set in Buganda that ignores occupants is incomplete.
Land in Uganda belongs to the citizens of Uganda and shall vest in them in accordance with the land tenure systems provided for in this Constitution.
— Article 237(1)