Navigating Land Laws of Bangladesh: A Guide to Purchasing Property.

1. Introduction: Purchasing land in Bangladesh is a significant endeavor that requires a thorough comprehension of the complex land laws of the nation. With a population density among the highest globally, Land ownership and its legal complexities are important issues for both citizens & foreigners.?Buying land in Bangladesh requires legal knowledge and diligence due to the intricacies of property rights and regulatory compliance. This article explores the fundamentals of Bangladesh's land laws, offering advice and insights to individuals starting the process of buying a piece of land.

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2. Land Administration in Bangladesh

Land administration deals with the creation, transfer, extinguishment of land rights. However, land administration in Bangladesh includes the revenue administration, survey administration and certificate administration.?As a part of the civil administration, the land administration in Bangladesh comprises from bottom to top the office of the Union Land Officer (Tahsildar) at the union level, the office of the Assistant Commissioner (Land) at the thana level, the office of the Deputy Commissioner (The Collectorate) at the district level, the office of the Divisional Commissioner at the division level, Land Reform Board and Land Appeal Board. The current administrative structure of land management in Bangladesh is built around three core functions: 1) Record keeping, 2) Registration, and 3) Settlement. The core functions of land administration are maintained by various departments of two Ministries, The Ministry of Land (MoL) and the Ministry of Law, Justice and Parliamentary Affairs (MLJP).

2.1 Direct authorities:

a) National Parliament

b) Ministry of land

c) Board of Land Administration

i. Land Appeal Board

ii. Land Reform Board

d) Divisional Commissioner

e) Deputy Commissioner

f) Assistant Commissioner

g) Union Land Officer

2.2 Disposal of land dispute authorities

h) Supreme Court of Bangladesh

i. Appellate Division

ii. High Court Division

i) District Judge Court

j) Additional District Judge Court

k) Joint District Judge Court

l) Senior Assistant Judge Court

m) Assistant Judge Court

2.3 Other authorities

a) District Registrar

b) Sub-Registrar

3. Types of Land?in Bangladesh

3.1 Agricultural land:?The land used for agricultural or horticulture work is called agricultural land.

3.2 Non-agricultural land:?The land which is not used for agriculture and horticulture is called non-agricultural land. Besides, any land located in any metropolitan area, municipal area or Thana Sadar area will also be considered as non-agricultural land. Land other than arable land outside the said area shall be treated as non-agricultural land.

3.3 State owned land:?State-owned land means land owned by the government and under the authority and control of the government's Ministry of Lands. Essentially, the absolute ownership of land by the government is known as Khas Bhoomi, which is recorded in the government's Khatian No. 1. Government-owned land is tax-free and a large portion of such land is cultivable.

3.4 Cooperatively owned land:?A cooperative society can acquire land ownership for its members. However, in order to acquire land ownership in a cooperative society, the cooperative society must be registered as per the government's law and acquire the land ownership within the upper limit of land acquisition.

3.5 Individually owned land:?The ownership of all state lands is vested in the government. However, the government at different times in different ways transfers the ownership of land to its citizens subject to conditions. For example, the government settles Khas land under its control among citizens subject to certain conditions. This is how individual ownership is created. Again, after a person acquires the ownership of land from the state, he again transfers the ownership of the land to another person.

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4. Land Rights & Types Thereof

The legal principles surrounding land ownership in Bangladesh are governed by specific legislation and the Government, from time to time, make changes to confer better land rights to citizens. Any dispute in relation to land rights are resolved by the courts which is time consuming due to the archaic nature of the Bangladesh courts.

In Bangladesh land may be held as an owner with freehold right, as a lessee with leasehold rights or as a licensee with mere right to use.

4.1 Freehold right: The landlord of the property enjoys absolute right, title and interest in the property. Freehold right may be acquired by way of inheritance, gift, will or purchase. The landlord can deal with the property in the way he/she desires.

4.2 Leasehold right:?A person enjoying freehold rights may lease the property along with certain rights, as per agreed terms and conditions, and for a stipulated period, against some consideration to another person to use the property strictly as per the agreed terms and for a specified purpose only.

4.3 License: ?A license is a right to do or continues to do, in or upon the immovable property of the landlord, something which would in the absence of such right be unlawful, and such right does not amount to an easement or an interest in the property. A mere license does not create an interest in property to which it relates.

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5. Modes of Transfer of Land

Transfer of property in Bangladesh is governed by the Transfer of Property Act 1882. In this act, “transfer of property” means an act by which a living person conveys property, in present or in future, to one or more other living persons, or to himself, or to himself and one or more other living persons.“Living person” includes a company or associations or body of individuals.

5.1 Sale: Sale is a transfer of ownership in exchange for a price paid or promised or part paid or promised.

Contract for sale:?When the seller and buyer agree to sell and purchase the property at a later stage, a contract for sale is formed between the seller and buyer. This contract creates a personal obligation between the buyer and seller, the ownership of the property is not transferred by a contract for sale. A contract for sale should be registered with the relevant Sub Registry Office.

5.2 Lease:?A lease of immovable property is a transfer of right to enjoy such property, made for a certain time express or implied or in perpetuity, in consideration of a price paid or promised or of money a share of crops, service or any other thing of value.

5.3 Exchange: When two persons mutually transfer the ownership of one thing for the ownership of another neither thing or both things being money only, the transaction is called an exchange.

5.4 Mortgage:?Mortgage is defined under Sec.58 (a) of the Act. A mortgage is a” transfer of an interest” in some immovable property for securing the repayment of money of loan.

5.5 Gift:?Gift is the ?transfer of certain existing movable property made voluntarily and without consideration by one person called the donor ,to another called the donee and accepted by or on behalf of the donee.

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6. Steps to Purchase Land

6.1 Documents collection: The first step to purchase a land is collecting the documents from the vendor or from the Seller.

6.2 Vetting or Due diligence:?It is a series of steps that one has to do to ensure that a property in question is safe from any sort of hassle, authentic and if anyone purchases it, he would become the rightful owner of the said property. In the process of vetting, there are a total of nine long steps one has to follow.

6.3 Physical verification of documents & litigation search: After completing Vetting of the the documents, you need to verify the documents physically ?as well as collect the copies of it from the concerned office of the land & you also need to conduct Litigation search of the land.

6.4 Sale agreement (It’s not the standard Saaf Kabla): After compelting the physical verification od the documents, the next step is to conduct a Sale Agreement. This agreement will define the total purchase price and payment mechanism. ?You may also be required to sign a Biana [ Agreement for Purchase] agreementt with seller with some advance money. The agreement must be registered.

6.5 Newspaper advertisement: In this step, an advertisement of purchasing the land in the local on national newspaper. We recommend to hang a sign board & advertisement of purchase in front of the scheduled land before purchasing it.

6.6 Collection of NEC/TSR: TSR (Title Search Report) or NEC (Non-emcumbrance certificate) in favor of the seller in order to ascertain that no previous transfer has been made by the seller.

6.7 Saaf kabla & registration: A Sale deed?or Saaf kabla?is?an actual transfer of ownership of a property. After the execution of Sale deed you need to apply for registration of the document to the Sub-registrar office.

6.8 Mutation/ Namjari/Kharij: ?In general, mutation means?recording the new owner's name in the Khatian who have become the owner by way of transfer or inheritance.?It will take 2-3 months to complete this step.

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7. Understanding Land Ownership

7.1 Deeds/Dolil of the Land/ the Instruments:?Instrument or Dolil refers to the registered papers of ?land by which the ownership of a piece of land is ?ascertained. Due to the diversified nature of transfer of land, instruments or dolils are of many kinds. Amongst them Saaf kabala Dolil/ purchase deed, baya dolil, gift deed/ Heba dolil, will deed, partition deed/ bonton_x0002_nama dolil, exchange deed/eowaj dolil, contract for sale deed/ Baynapotra dolil are mostly used types of dolils in Bangladesh. Though at present, deeds are in type written format, previously it was in hand written format which are mostly unclear, vague and non-understandable to the general people. Profound avail-ability of technical terms in the deeds makes those papers unintelligible. Some foreign words e.g., ejmali (concerted), Sakin (village), khiraj (land tax), tuda-bondi (demarcation) etc. are being used in the deeds that may easily be converted to the understandable Bangla words.

7.2 Record of Rights (ROR)/ Khatian/ Porcha: Record of rights or khatian is another significant document that an owner of land should have. This document is prepared by the Government for the purpose of determining the then possession, identification and fixation of land ?development tax. Khatian can broadly be classified into two types: Survey Khatian and Mutation Khatian. CS, SA, RS, BS and City Jarip are the widely used Survey Khatians prevalent in the country. Mutation means insertion of the name of the new owner in the Khatiyan (Record of Rights) instead of the former owner after transferring the ownership of a land. When a person or organization gets the ownership of a piece of land legally by updating the ownership information in the government’s record, it is called Mutation Khatiyan or Namjari. In other words, a Mutation khatiyan is creating a new khatiyan by replacing the name in the existing khatiyan.

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7.3 Mouja Map or Naksha: Mouja is a sort of administrative unit analogous to a specific land area where the land boundaries and land use and land size and amount are designed. Mouja itself is a confusing name. This may be renamed by prevalent name of area. For understanding the quantity of land in the mouza map, every piece of land in a dag number is measured using such scales like Gunia etc. which are in common not understandable. If a piece of land is to be transferred from one person to another person’s ownership, the deed or dolil is obligatory to be registered by the concerned sub-regis_x0002_ter office which is under the ministry of law, justice and parliamentary affairs. After the registration of transfer is done, the sub-register office sends a Land Transfer (LT) notice to the Assistant Commissioner (Land) office for mutation purpose. AC (Land) office is responsible for mutation or namjari, namkharij etc.

7.4 Physical Possession of the Land: Possession in land law refers to?the physical control and occupation of a piece of land or property. It is not merely the legal title to the land, but rather the tangible exercise of control over it.

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8. Conclusion:?To sum up, purchasing land in Bangladesh is a complex procedure that is closely linked to the legal system of the nation. To guarantee a seamless and legally sound purchase, prospective landowners and investors must carefully navigate through property rights, registration processes, and compliance requirements. A successful property purchase can be facilitated by having a solid understanding of Bangladesh's land laws and receiving professional help, even though the process may appear overwhelming at first. Individuals and businesses can confidently and clearly handle the complexity of land acquisition in Bangladesh if they exercise due diligence and follow the legal procedures.

Consult a relevant professional’s advice prior to making any decisions based on this article.?if you have any question then leave a comment below.

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