Research date: 3 September 2026
Geographic focus: Uganda
Sector focus: land transactions, property brokerage, title fraud, developers, land administration and PropTech
Evidence note: The commonly repeated claim that real-estate fraud costs Uganda UGX 250 billion annually could not be substantiated through Uganda Government, Uganda Police, Parliament, World Bank or other high-quality independent sources reviewed for this research. The figure appears online in secondary commentary, but it should not be presented as an official national loss estimate. The underlying fraud problem is real and significant; the precise UGX 250 billion annual figure is not presently evidenced.
Table of Contents
Executive summary
Uganda’s property market has a genuine fraud and land-governance problem, but the strongest evidence points to a more complex picture than a single annual monetary-loss number.
The Uganda Police Force recorded 663 land-fraud cases in 2025, compared with 397 in 2024, an increase of approximately 67%. The cases include fraudulent procurement of certificates of title, obtaining registration by false pretences, obtaining money by false pretences, criminal trespass and forgery. The official police report also shows that many cases remained at investigation or prosecution stages. Uganda Police Annual Crime Report 2025
At the institutional level, the problem is broader than criminal fraud. Parliament was told in July 2026 that land disputes account for about 42% of cases handled by courts, while the Ministry of Lands acknowledged continuing problems involving land conflicts, illegal evictions, land grabbing, fraud, double titling and corruption.
Uganda has nevertheless made substantial progress in digitising land administration. The Uganda National Land Information System (UgNLIS) now supports digitised land records, online searches and a network of 22 Ministry Zonal Offices. The Ministry says the system is designed to reduce the time required to check, update and transfer land and reduce corruption associated with these processes. Uganda National Land Information System — Ministry of Lands
The biggest regulatory development is not an already-effective “Agent Licensing Regulations 2025”, as sometimes claimed online. Rather, Uganda is still moving toward a comprehensive Real Estate Bill, with the government listing the Real Estate Bill, 2025 in its 2026/27 legislative programme. Earlier drafts proposed registration and licensing of agents and salespersons, professional examinations, a code of ethics, project registration and mandatory trust accounts.
Quick takeaways
| Issue | What the evidence actually shows |
|---|---|
| UGX 250bn annual fraud cost | Not independently verified. Do not treat it as an official Uganda-wide loss estimate. |
| Land fraud cases | 663 in 2025, up from 397 in 2024 and 271 in 2023. |
| Double/duplicate titles | A documented problem, including allegations involving special certificates issued while original titles still existed. |
| Fake brokers | A longstanding problem; government is moving toward formal registration and licensing through the proposed Real Estate Bill. |
| Real Estate Bill | Not yet an enacted comprehensive real-estate agency law as of 3 Sept. 2026; government intends to table the 2025 Bill. |
| UgNLIS | Operational national digital land information infrastructure with 22 Ministry Zonal Offices. |
| Blockchain | Uganda’s Ministry has discussed future blockchain/AI use, but the claimed 5,000-title Wakiso blockchain pilot could not be verified. |
| Escrow | The proposed Real Estate Bill provides for trust accounts for client money; this is stronger evidence than claims about a particular escrow platform. |
| Land registration | Ministry figures cited in Parliament in July 2026 put registered land coverage at about 30.12%. |
| Due diligence | A registry search is necessary but not sufficient; physical inspection, boundaries, occupants, seller identity and family/spousal interests also matter. |
1. Why real-estate fraud matters beyond individual scams
Land is not simply another asset class in Uganda. It is simultaneously a source of household wealth, agricultural production, collateral, housing, commercial development and long-term investment.
The World Bank has repeatedly identified insecure land rights, weak land institutions, overlapping claims and high transaction costs as constraints on Uganda’s economic development. Its Uganda economic update specifically highlighted corruption, weak laws and inadequate transparency around urban land transactions as contributors to high transaction costs.
More recent World Bank work similarly emphasises that land registries create economic value only when land rights can be trusted and the system is affordable and accessible.
The consequences of fraud therefore extend beyond the amount paid to a scammer:
Fraud → disputed ownership → delayed registration → litigation → construction delays → financing problems → reduced investor confidence → slower development.
A fraudulent or disputed title can prevent a purchaser from obtaining financing, developing the site, selling the property or using it as collateral.
2. The scale of Uganda’s documented land-fraud problem
Police data provides the clearest national indicator
The Uganda Police Force’s 2025 Annual Crime Report records the following land-fraud figures:
Land-fraud cases reported
2022 | ████████████████████████████ 561
2023 | ██████████████ 271
2024 | ████████████████████ 397
2025 | █████████████████████████████████ 663| Year | Reported land-fraud cases | Annual change |
|---|---|---|
| 2022 | 561 | — |
| 2023 | 271 | -51.7% |
| 2024 | 397 | +46.5% |
| 2025 | 663 | +67.0% |
The official police data classifies land fraud broadly, including fraudulent procurement of certificates of title, obtaining registration by false pretences, obtaining money by false pretences, criminal trespass and forgery.
The rise from 397 to 663 cases is important, but it should not be interpreted automatically as proof that fraud itself increased by exactly 67%. Reporting, enforcement activity, public willingness to report and police classification practices can all influence recorded cases.
There is another important statistical caveat: the official report contains multiple case-status categories, and these cannot simply be added together as unique cases because a single case can move through several stages.
3. Duplicate and fraudulent land titles
What is title duplication?
Title duplication occurs when more than one apparently valid registration or certificate is associated with the same parcel or overlapping land interests.
It can arise from:
- fraudulent procurement of a certificate;
- abuse of replacement or special-title procedures;
- manipulation of registry records;
- overlapping cadastral information;
- forged supporting documents;
- administrative errors;
- deliberate collusion between intermediaries and officials.
This is not a theoretical risk.
In September 2026, Parliament debated a proposal to temporarily halt the issuance of special certificates of title after the Ministry reported complaints that special certificates had sometimes been obtained or issued despite the continued existence of original duplicate titles. Parliament described the issue as one affecting the integrity of the land-registration system relied upon by citizens, courts, banks, investors and purchasers.
The problem also has a documented history. Earlier investigations by Uganda’s land institutions identified cases of double titling in Wakiso, including situations where a second title was issued despite an existing title over the same property.
The critical point is that there is no reliable evidence supporting the statement that Ministry surveys detect “over 8,000 parcels with duplicate titles every year.”
An often-cited figure of 8,000 relates to completely different circumstances in several sources: for example, an older academic source refers to an estimate of more than 8,000 fake land titles in Uganda, while multiple Ugandan news stories use “8,000” to describe residents or beneficiaries affected by specific land disputes. These are not evidence of 8,000 duplicate parcels being detected annually.
4. Fake brokers and informal brokerage
Brokerage is one of the most vulnerable points in the property transaction chain because the broker frequently becomes the first source of information for a buyer.
A dishonest intermediary can:
- advertise property without the owner’s consent;
- misrepresent the location or size;
- use photographs from another property;
- impersonate the owner;
- create urgency to force a deposit;
- collect money without a mandate;
- introduce a forged title;
- conceal occupants or competing interests;
- disappear after receiving commission or deposits.
The Daily Monitor has documented fake-broker practices for years, including cases where supposed agents misrepresented themselves and exploited buyers who failed to conduct independent verification.
The problem is still current. In April 2026, Daily Monitor reported that Uganda’s land-fraud ecosystem increasingly involves networks of surveyors, brokers and middlemen, including unlicensed brokers and informal agents. Police data showed 663 land-fraud cases in 2025.
A particularly revealing example came from the Inspectorate of Government in 2025, when the IGG investigated allegations involving the Uganda Land Commission and brokers, including allegations that some brokers were actually employees of the Commission. The investigation involved claims concerning transactions for non-existent land.
5. “Ghost estates” and fake online property listings
The modern version of property fraud is increasingly digital.
A scammer can create:
Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp listing → attractive photos → fake location → fake agent profile → inspection fee/deposit → disappearance.
The rise of online property advertising makes this particularly dangerous because buyers can form an apparently credible picture of a property without ever physically seeing it.
Ugandan property guidance warns buyers to physically verify the property, inspect documentation and independently check the seller and broker rather than treating an online advertisement as evidence of ownership.
However, the specific assertion that Daily Monitor exposed “ghost estates” costing buyers UGX 5–20 million per incident could not be independently verified in the sources reviewed. There are documented Ugandan cases involving non-existent land and property-related deception, including court cases where victims paid millions of shillings for property they did not actually have a valid right to purchase.
One particularly serious 2025 case involved an American investor who reportedly lost more than UGX 2.2 billion in a broader scam involving non-existent gold mines and land. It demonstrates that fraudulent property narratives can target not only ordinary homebuyers but also international investors.
6. The regulatory gap: Uganda does not yet have the system described in the supplied claim
One of the most important corrections concerns the statement:
“Agent Licensing Regulations 2025 mandates mandatory licensing, criminal background checks and a code of ethics.”
The evidence does not support describing such a regulation as an already operational standalone 2025 licensing regime.
Instead, Uganda has been developing comprehensive real-estate legislation for years.
In 2024, the Ministry said the Real Estate Bill, 2024 was being prepared to register and license land brokers, real-estate agents and other market participants.
By 2026, the government had advanced the proposal to a Real Estate Bill, 2025, which was included in the official legislative programme for the 2026/27 financial year. Parliament was subsequently urged to fast-track land reforms including the long-awaited Real Estate Bill.
What the draft legislation would do
The November 2024 draft provides for:
| Proposed mechanism | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Register of real-estate agents | Make professional intermediaries identifiable |
| Registration of salespersons | Bring employees/intermediaries into the regulatory framework |
| Professional qualifications | Raise competency standards |
| Professional examinations | Test technical competence |
| Professional Code of Ethics | Establish conduct requirements |
| Real-estate project registration | Bring developers and projects into a formal registry |
| Trust accounts | Separate client money from an agent’s own funds |
| Audit requirements | Improve accountability for client funds |
| Consumer protection | Address misleading or unfair practices |
The draft also states that a person convicted of an offence involving fraud or dishonesty would not qualify for registration.
Crucially, however, the draft does not use the same language as the supplied claim about mandatory “criminal background checks”.
Nor is the frequently quoted UGX 10 million fine a reliable summary of the draft. The draft uses currency points, with one currency point equivalent to UGX 20,000; some offences carry penalties of hundreds or thousands of currency points.
7. Trust accounts are potentially more important than simple escrow marketing
The supplied context mentions platforms such as “EscrowPay” holding deposits until title transfer.
The broader principle is sound: buyers should minimise the amount of money paid directly to unverified intermediaries before key conditions are satisfied.
But the stronger Ugandan regulatory development is the trust-account mechanism proposed in the Real Estate Bill.
The draft legislation requires practising agents receiving client money to hold it in a trust account at an authorised financial institution. The draft says trust money should be deposited into that account within two business days and restricts how those funds may be withdrawn. It also introduces reporting and audit requirements.
This is considerably more meaningful from a regulatory perspective than simply promoting a private “escrow platform”.
8. What happened to the claimed Land LayBy blockchain pilot?
The supplied context states:
“Land LayBY UG’s Wakiso pilot records 5,000 parcel titles on an immutable ledger.”
I could not verify that claim.
The Land LayBy material available online describes the company as a blockchain-oriented real-estate technology business incorporated in Kenya and Australia, rather than a Ugandan government land-registry programme.
There is, however, a genuine Ugandan technology initiative involving more than 5,000 parcels in field data collection. Cadasta Foundation and its Ugandan partner Ujamaa Foundation used high-precision GNSS technology in Uganda to document parcels, exceeding the 5,000-parcel mark without boundary overlaps. This was a land-documentation project—not evidence of 5,000 Ugandan title records being placed on a blockchain.
Uganda’s real technology story
Uganda’s more firmly documented technology response is UgNLIS.
The system was developed through government programmes supported by the World Bank and has digitised more than 550,000 freehold, leasehold and mailo titles through the underlying digitisation programme. Uganda now has 22 Ministry Zonal Offices linked to this system.
The Ministry specifically identifies benefits including:
- faster checking, updating and transferring of land;
- greater tenure security;
- reduced corruption opportunities;
- improved information access;
- identification of overlaps and protected areas.
In April 2026, the Ministry also said it intended to use blockchain and artificial intelligence over the next three years to strengthen the land-registration system and prevent erroneous titles.
That is a credible and significant development—but it is different from claiming that Uganda already has a blockchain land registry containing 5,000 Wakiso titles.
9. Digitalisation has helped—but it has not eliminated delays
UgNLIS is important, but technology cannot automatically solve institutional weaknesses.
A 2025 Auditor General assessment reviewed land services delivered through Ministry Zonal Offices between FY2021/22 and FY2024/25.
The findings reported that MZOs received 934,645 land-registration applications and processed 657,384, a completion rate of approximately 70.3%. In other words, nearly 30% remained unresolved over the review period.
This matters because a digital registry can reduce information asymmetry while still leaving bottlenecks in:
staffing + approvals + surveying + document retrieval + dispute resolution + corruption controls + court processes.
The Ministry itself has published standard service times: for example, a physical land search is listed at UGX 10,000, with a standard time of one working day, while a search letter is listed at two working days.
The official UgNLIS public-portal guidance likewise specifies UGX 10,000 per online search and provides title and parcel search functionality.
10. The biggest due-diligence mistake: believing that a title search is enough
A title search is essential—but it is only one part of property due diligence.
Uganda’s Justice Centres explicitly warns that a registry search alone is insufficient. Buyers should also inspect the property physically, engage a surveyor to confirm boundaries, investigate occupants and disputes, and establish whether the seller has the legal authority to transact.
A September 2026 Daily Monitor investigation reached the same conclusion: buyers should verify the seller’s identity, boundaries, previous transactions, occupants and competing claims instead of relying solely on documents presented by the seller.
Recommended due-diligence chain
| Stage | What should be verified | Independent evidence |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Seller identity | National/company identification |
| 2 | Agency identity | URSB/company search and professional credentials |
| 3 | Title | UgNLIS/official registry search |
| 4 | Encumbrances | Mortgages, caveats and registered interests |
| 5 | Survey | Physical boundaries and coordinates |
| 6 | Possession | Occupants, tenants, users and neighbours |
| 7 | Family interests | Spousal/family consent where applicable |
| 8 | Physical planning | Approved land use and development permissions |
| 9 | Litigation | Court/dispute checks |
| 10 | Contract | Independent lawyer prepares/reviews sale agreement |
| 11 | Payment | Controlled payment/trust arrangement |
| 12 | Registration | Confirm transfer is actually entered into the register |
This is why the Ministry’s official land-search procedures should be treated as the baseline rather than the entire investigation.
11. The special problem of Uganda’s overlapping land interests
Uganda’s land-tenure structure makes property verification particularly complicated.
The country’s legal system recognises customary, freehold, mailo and leasehold tenure.
Mailo land can be particularly complicated because registered ownership can coexist with rights of lawful or bona fide occupants.
The World Bank’s Uganda research has long identified these overlapping rights as an important source of investment disincentives and land conflict.
Consequently:
A legitimate title does not necessarily mean that a buyer has completed legitimate due diligence.
The title may belong to the genuine registered proprietor while another person has rights of occupancy or another legally protected interest.
That distinction is fundamental to Uganda’s land market.
12. Court delays turn fraud into an investment risk
Fraud becomes substantially more expensive when disputes enter the judicial system.
Uganda’s Ministry of Finance reported that the overall judicial case backlog rose from 42,588 cases in FY2023/24 to 46,181 in FY2024/25, while land cases recorded the lowest disposal rate among the categories reported, at 41.40%.
Parliament also reported in July 2026 that land disputes account for approximately 42% of court cases handled, underlining the sheer institutional weight of land conflict.
For a real-estate investor, the risk therefore has two dimensions:
Direct risk
Money lost through fraud, forgery, impersonation or misrepresentation.
Opportunity-cost risk
Capital becomes trapped in:
- litigation;
- incomplete construction;
- disputed ownership;
- delayed financing;
- inactive development sites;
- legal fees;
- survey and re-survey costs;
- lost rental or sales income.
The second category is difficult to measure nationally, which is another reason why simplistic “UGX 250 billion annually” estimates need caution.
13. Is UGX 250 billion a credible national estimate?
The evidence verdict: unsubstantiated
An extensive search of official and high-quality sources did not identify a credible national study establishing that title duplication and fake brokerage operations cost Uganda’s real-estate market UGX 250 billion every year.
That does not mean the economic damage is small.
In fact, the evidence demonstrates substantial economic consequences. The World Bank has documented the relationship between insecure land rights, high transaction costs, inefficient land markets and weaker investment outcomes in Uganda.
But a credible national cost estimate would require at least:
number of fraudulent transactions × average transaction loss + litigation costs + administrative costs + construction delays + financing costs + lost economic output, with appropriate avoidance of double-counting.
Uganda’s publicly available police statistics do not provide this calculation.
Therefore, the safer editorial formulation is:
“Uganda’s property market is exposed to significant economic losses from land fraud, forged titles, informal brokerage and prolonged disputes; however, the frequently cited UGX 250 billion annual loss has not been independently established by official national data.”
That formulation is substantially more defensible for a professional research publication.
14. What Uganda’s regulatory trajectory means for investors
The regulatory direction is becoming clearer.
Existing infrastructure
UgNLIS + 22 Ministry Zonal Offices + online searches + digitised records
These systems improve transparency and reduce dependence on paper records.
Proposed real-estate regulation
Real Estate Bill, 2025
The government intends to introduce legislation covering agents, salespersons, developers, projects, client money and professional conduct.
Financial-crime controls
Real-estate agents already fall within Uganda’s Anti-Money Laundering framework as accountable persons, which brings obligations into the financial-integrity ecosystem.
Technology
Uganda is pursuing further digitalisation and has announced plans to explore blockchain and AI in land administration.
The combination is potentially powerful:
Professional regulation + digital registry + financial controls + better surveying + public education.
None, however, substitutes for effective enforcement.
15. What investors should do now
Investors should not wait for the Real Estate Bill to become law before adopting professional standards.
A practical “zero-trust” property verification model
Treat every transaction as unverified until independently demonstrated otherwise.
1. Verify the intermediary.
Check the company through the Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB) and obtain evidence of the agent’s authority to represent the property owner. URSB operates an official central register of companies, businesses and other entities.
2. Verify the title independently.
Do not accept a PDF, WhatsApp scan or photocopy supplied by the seller as sufficient evidence.
3. Verify the actual land.
Survey the coordinates and boundaries.
4. Speak to neighbours and occupants.
A dispute that is invisible in an advertisement can be immediately obvious on site.
5. Check encumbrances and family interests.
A title is not the entire legal story.
6. Use an independent lawyer.
The lawyer should represent the buyer, not the intermediary.
7. Control the money.
Avoid sending large deposits to personal mobile-money accounts or unrelated individuals.
8. Keep evidence.
Retain advertisements, emails, WhatsApp conversations, receipts, contracts, title searches, survey reports and payment records.
16. Investor risk matrix
| Fraud/risk | Probability concern | Financial impact | Best control |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fake broker | High | Medium–High | Identity + authority verification |
| Forged title | High | Very High | Independent registry search |
| Duplicate title | Medium–High | Very High | Registry + cadastral verification |
| Non-existent property | Medium | High | Physical inspection |
| Boundary manipulation | Medium–High | High | Independent survey |
| Hidden occupants | High in some tenure contexts | High | Site inspection + local inquiries |
| Family/spousal dispute | Medium–High | High | Legal and consent checks |
| Developer misrepresentation | Medium | Very High | Project documentation + legal review |
| Deposit theft | High | Medium–High | Trust/controlled payment mechanism |
| Court dispute | Medium | Very High | Litigation and encumbrance checks |
17. A better way to measure Uganda’s real-estate fraud problem
Rather than relying on an unsupported aggregate such as UGX 250 billion, Uganda could publish a dedicated Real Estate Fraud Loss Index.
It should track:
A. Fraud volume
- reported land-fraud cases;
- title-forgery cases;
- duplicate-title cases;
- fake-broker complaints;
- fraudulent development projects.
B. Financial losses
- money paid by victims;
- property value under dispute;
- recovered funds;
- unrecovered losses.
C. Administrative impact
- average investigation duration;
- title-correction time;
- court duration;
- land-office backlog.
D. Market impact
- stalled developments;
- cancelled transactions;
- financing rejected because of title uncertainty;
- investor withdrawals;
- construction delays.
Such a framework would enable Uganda to move from anecdotes to a measurable national property-integrity indicator.
18. Policy recommendations
For the Government
Complete and implement the real-estate regulatory framework while ensuring that registration does not become another bureaucratic bottleneck.
For the Ministry of Lands
Continue expanding UgNLIS, automate overlap detection, integrate cadastral, physical-planning and court data, and strengthen audit trails around special and replacement certificates.
For Parliament
Prioritise passage of the Real Estate Bill while ensuring adequate resources for enforcement.
For regulators
Create a searchable public register of licensed agents, salespersons and developers.
For financial institutions
Require independent title and ownership verification before financing property purchases or accepting land as collateral.
For developers
Publish verifiable project information, ownership documentation, approvals, professional-team details and buyer-payment safeguards.
For buyers
Treat independent due diligence as part of the purchase price, not as an optional expense.
19. The outlook toward 2027
Uganda enters the next phase of real-estate development with a paradox.
On one side, the country has substantially modernised the land-information infrastructure through UgNLIS and decentralised Ministry Zonal Offices.
On the other, the country continues to experience:
- rising recorded land-fraud cases;
- double-titling allegations;
- land-related litigation;
- delays in land offices;
- informal and unlicensed brokerage;
- undocumented customary interests;
- enforcement weaknesses.
The government’s decision to place the Real Estate Bill, 2025 in its 2026/27 legislative programme indicates that policy makers recognise that digitisation alone cannot solve the professional-regulation problem.
The most important transition will therefore be from:
digitising records
to
building a trusted property transaction ecosystem.
That ecosystem requires the registry, broker, developer, lawyer, surveyor, bank, regulator and buyer to be connected by verifiable information.
Final assessment
Uganda does face a serious real-estate fraud problem, but the evidence points to land-governance fragmentation, title fraud, informal brokerage, overlapping rights and enforcement capacity rather than a single measurable fraud category worth exactly UGX 250 billion annually.
The strongest current indicator is the 663 land-fraud cases reported by police in 2025, a 67% increase from 2024.
The strongest institutional response is UgNLIS and the expansion of digital land administration, while the most important pending regulatory reform is the Real Estate Bill, 2025.
The technology opportunity is real, including potential future applications of blockchain and AI, but specific claims about a Land LayBY 5,000-title blockchain pilot in Wakiso are not established by the evidence reviewed.
Most importantly, technology cannot replace due diligence. The buyer who checks the registry, walks the land, verifies the survey, speaks with occupants and neighbours, confirms the seller’s authority, uses an independent lawyer and controls payment has materially reduced the probability of becoming another land-fraud statistic.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Is the UGX 250 billion annual real-estate fraud figure official?
No. The research reviewed did not locate an official Uganda Government, Police, Parliament or World Bank study establishing UGX 250 billion as Uganda’s annual real-estate fraud loss. It should be labelled an unverified estimate, not an established national statistic.
2. How many land-fraud cases were reported in Uganda in 2025?
The Uganda Police Force recorded 663 land-fraud cases in 2025, compared with 397 in 2024.
3. Does Uganda have an “Agent Licensing Regulations 2025”?
Not in the form described in the supplied material. Uganda was still advancing the Real Estate Bill, 2025 through the legislative process in 2026.
4. Will real-estate agents eventually need licences?
The proposed legislation provides for registration of real-estate agents and salespersons and licensing/practice requirements. The policy direction is clearly toward formalisation, but the timing and final statutory requirements depend on enactment of the Bill and subsequent regulations.
5. Does a genuine land title guarantee that a property is safe to buy?
No. Buyers also need to verify the seller’s authority, boundaries, occupants, family interests, encumbrances, physical possession and potential disputes.
6. Can I verify land online in Uganda?
Yes. The Ministry operates the UgNLIS public portal, which supports title and parcel searches. The Ministry’s published guidance states that a public-portal search costs UGX 10,000.
7. Does Uganda use blockchain for land?
Uganda has discussed and is planning further use of blockchain and AI in land administration, but that is not the same as saying the national registry is already a blockchain registry.
8. Was there a 5,000-title blockchain pilot in Wakiso?
I found no sufficiently authoritative evidence establishing the claimed Wakiso blockchain pilot. There was, however, a genuine Ugandan land-documentation project that surpassed 5,000 parcels using high-precision GNSS surveying.
9. What should I do before buying land?
Use an independent lawyer, conduct an official title search, verify the seller, inspect the land, conduct an independent survey, speak to occupants and neighbours, investigate encumbrances and only then structure payment and transfer.
10. Where can I verify whether a property company actually exists?
The Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB) provides an official search facility for registered companies and other non-individual entities.
11. Why does land fraud continue despite digitisation?
Because digitisation addresses information and record-management problems but does not automatically eliminate human misconduct, overlapping tenure rights, weak enforcement, incomplete registration, survey disputes or court backlogs. Uganda’s Auditor General-related findings show that substantial numbers of land-service applications remain unresolved despite digitisation.
12. Is Uganda’s property market still investable?
Yes, but transaction discipline is critical. The evidence suggests that the opportunity is substantial, while institutional and title risks require stronger verification, legal structuring and risk management. The World Bank has consistently linked secure and efficiently administered land rights with investment, productivity and economic development in Uganda.
