Land law in Somalia: who owns the land and how it is recorded

Who owns homes and land

From the national household survey of 2022 (Somali National Bureau of Statistics, SIHBS 2022, tables 5.2 and 7.4):

• 23.3 percent of households own and use land: 30.5 percent in rural areas, 22.8 percent in towns and 11.0 percent among nomads.
• Of land parcels, 74.8 percent are used for homes, 20.9 percent for farming, 3.5 percent for business and 2.4 percent for grazing.
• Most parcels have one owner. Among single owners, men hold 61.7 percent of house plots and 71.0 percent of farm plots (same source).

Three kinds of law

Land in the Somali lands is governed by formal state law, customary law (xeer, applied by elders) and Islamic law (sharia). Where the three overlap or differ, lawyers and judges are often unsure which applies (Legal Action Worldwide and NRC, Housing, Land and Property in Somalia, October 2014). In practice, most land disputes in the south and centre are settled by clan elders (same source). Xeer has separate rules for farmers (xeer qodato), herders (xeer daaqsato) and fishers (xeer dabato), and private land disputes made up about 80 percent of cases before the courts in Mogadishu, according to a 2023 review for the Heritage Institute (Heritage Institute, Land Governance Review, 2023).

Before 1975

The 2023 Heritage Institute review, by Dr Surer Qassim Mohamed of Cambridge University, says the 1970 Law for Social Protection abolished group rights over land and water and claimed them for the state, and that the government passed 22 laws on crop farming between 1970 and 1976. It dates the Urban Land Law to 1973, amended in 1980 (Heritage Institute, 2023). The same review cites research finding that titles in farming areas often went to traders, businessmen and officials from Mogadishu and regional capitals.

The 1975 Land Law

The government of Siad Barre passed the Land Law of 1975. It tried to end customary ownership in the countryside and make the state the owner of all land. The only way to hold land was a registered leasehold of 50 years (LAW and NRC, 2014). An IGAD land profile adds that occupants had to register within six months of the law, and that registration was most active in the irrigated Shabelle and Juba valleys (IGAD Land Governance Portal, Somalia).

Few people registered. By 1986 only 0.05 percent of the land of south-central Somalia was registered, and by 1988 only 0.06 percent (LAW and NRC, 2014, citing Norton, NRC, UN-Habitat and UNHCR, 2008).

The government also appears to have passed a law on urban land in 1973, but little is known of its contents. It is not clear whether the 1975 law is still in force; the 1973 law probably is not (same source).

After 1991

Most land records in the registry, rural and urban, were destroyed in the fighting after 1991. One study found that even the owners of prime city plots could often not be traced (LAW and NRC, 2014, citing HanVard Africa, 2012). During the years without a central state, land decisions were made locally by whichever authority held the area (same source).

Deegaan and guri/galti

Two customary ideas shape rural land:

• Deegaan means traditional ownership of an area by a group.
• Guri and galti describes the relationship between settled residents (guri) and outsiders (galti). Historically, residents gave outsiders access to land if they followed local customs and authorities.

Both definitions are from LAW and NRC, 2014. The same report says displacement after 1991 brought stronger groups into farming areas, and that weaker groups and minorities were often displaced or had to lease land on insecure terms.

The law today

• No national land law. The Heritage Institute review says there has been no national land policy or land reform since 1991, and that the 2012 Provisional Constitution is the only national law that refers to land. The constitution says the federal government "shall develop a national land policy" and lets member states make land policies (Heritage Institute, 2023).
• Two kinds of plot. Laws in use still separate daminyaale (land for permanent use) from munishibaale (land for temporary use, where only temporary structures such as a baraako, cariish, mundul or aqal may be built). Permanent buildings are now common on temporary plots (same source).
• Mogadishu. The capital is not part of any member state, and no post-war law governs its land. The Banadir Regional Administration's Land Department (Waaxda Dhulka) registers sales between individuals but no longer registers or hands out new urban land (same source). After 1991, most public land and buildings were occupied, according to research the review cites.

Member states' land laws

All from the Heritage Institute review, 2023:

Somaliland's land laws

Somaliland's 2001 constitution says all land and natural resources are "public property commonly owned by the nation" and run by the state. Its main land laws are (LAW and NRC, 2014):

Urban, farm and grazing land fall under three different ministries. The process to register land is slow and costly, so most people buy and sell outside it. In 2006 Hargeisa had about 60,000 developed properties but only 3,000 titles (same source). Under a UNDP and Ministry of Agriculture project, 5,795 farm title deeds were issued in one year around 2011 to 2012. A 2011 assessment found that 90 percent of civil court cases in Somaliland were about land (same source).

Sources disagree

• How much land was registered. The 2014 LAW and NRC report gives 0.05 percent of south-central Somalia's land by 1986 and 0.06 percent by 1988. The 2023 Heritage Institute review, citing UN-Habitat, gives 0.5 and 0.6 percent of Somalia's land area for the same years (LAW and NRC, 2014; Heritage Institute, 2023).
• Puntland's urban land law. Somalia's 2018 National Action Programme to Combat Desertification names a Puntland Urban Land Management Law of 2008 (UNCCD, 2018); the Heritage Institute review lists laws of 2000, 2005 and 2020.
• Somaliland's urban law amendment. LAW and NRC give 2006 or 2008; the Heritage review gives 2008.

Related pages

• Evictions in Mogadishu and other cities
• Prices and the cost of living
• Farming and harvests
• Xeer: customary law