The land is available under the following land tenure system:
Customary land: Under this tenure, land is communally owned by a particular group of people in a particular area.
Freehold Land: It is a system of owning land in perpetuity and was set up by an agreement between the Kingdoms and the British Government. Grants of land in freehold were made by the Crown and later by the Uganda Land Commission.
Mailo Land: Land held under mailo tenure system is mainly in Buganda (Central region) and some parts of Western Uganda. The system confers freehold granted by the colonial government in exchange for political co-operation under the 1900 Buganda Agreement. Mailo land, like freehold is registered under the Registration of Titles Act.
Leasehold Land: This is a system of owning land for a particular period of time. In Uganda you can get a lease from an individual, local authority or government for a period usually 49 or 99 years with agreed terms and conditions. The leasehold Real Estate transactions, being essentially contractual allow parties to define the terms and conditions of access in such a manner that suits their reciprocal land use needs. A grant of land would be made by the owner of freehold, customary or Mailo or by the Crown or Uganda Land Commission to another person for an agreed period of time.
Public Land: Under this type of land tenure, the government owns land and has the right to lease it to any company or individual on specific terms and covenants. In most cases, land under this arrangement is not for settlement; it is basically for business and usually located in urban areas such as Kampala and other big towns in the country.
Land Registry
Since 1908, the land registry was run on a manual system of record keeping which was affected by problems of speed, inefficiency, inaccuracy, and lack of adequate internal controls as the number of records grew. In September 2003, the government took a decision to begin the implementation of computerizing the land registry. The aim was to address the shortcomings of the manual system, restore the integrity of land registry, and ensure modernization of the operations to meet the needs of the growing economy. The computerisation process has almost brought land transactions to a halt as the files and records have not yet been properly organised under the new system.