Govt Moves to Digitise Title Deeds, Curb Land Scams

The Government is overhauling local governance laws and digitising title deed processing as part of efforts to curb land scams, double sales and bureaucratic delays, Local Government and Public Works Minister Daniel Garwe has said.

Garwe made the remarks during a panel discussion at the Zimbabwe Diaspora Business Summit in Birmingham on Friday, where he outlined measures aimed at protecting property investors, including Zimbabweans living abroad, and accelerating housing delivery. He said the Government was reviewing local governance legislation and using technology to improve transparency in land and property transactions.

Garwe acknowledged concerns over high land prices and irregular land deals in urban areas, including cases involving officials and councillors.

“In urban local authorities, I think that is where we have irregular land deals by officials and councillors to a certain extent,” he said.

He said Government was tightening legal instruments and municipal by-laws to ensure that land prices were reasonable and buyers were protected from fraudulent transactions.

“We have now tightened the legal instruments, including by-laws, to ensure that, one, the cost of land is realistic; two, that when you pay for that land, you will not suffer from the consequences of double sales and illegal transactions,” Garwe said.

Local Government Laws Under Review

Zimbabwe has 92 local authorities, comprising 32 urban councils and 60 rural district councils. Garwe said his ministry's legal team was working with the Attorney General's Office to consolidate the legislation governing local authorities. The Urban Councils Act, Rural District Councils Act and Regional, Town and Country Planning Act, together with more than 145 local authority by-laws, are being reviewed as part of the process.

According to Garwe, the objective is to establish a unified parent law governing local authorities and reduce inconsistencies in the existing regulatory framework. The reforms are also intended to make local government administration more efficient and easier for investors to navigate.

Title Deeds Go Digital

Garwe said the Government had also moved to modernise the processing of title deeds.

He described the previous system as cumbersome and heavily dependent on paper-based processes, saying the Deeds Office, working with the Ministries of Justice and Local Government, had digitised the process.

“The process that we inherited was cumbersome and paper-based. Now the Deeds Office, supported by the Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Local Government, has digitised the whole process,” he said.

“It is now a digital system.”

The move is expected to reduce delays associated with manual processing while improving the tracking and management of property documentation. Garwe also linked the digitisation drive to Zimbabwe's wider adoption of technology in public administration.

Diaspora Offices Not Necessary

Some delegates called for dedicated local government offices to be established at Zimbabwean embassies to assist diaspora investors dealing with local authorities. Garwe, however, said creating additional offices could introduce another layer of bureaucracy and potentially interfere with existing diplomatic mandates.

Instead, he encouraged diaspora investors to engage directly with officials from local authorities attending the summit. He also urged Zimbabweans abroad experiencing specific land-related problems to submit properly documented cases for investigation and intervention.

“If there are issues that you are experiencing with our local authorities, please feel free to share with us, and we can share contacts so that we can deal with that,” he said. The proposed legal and digital reforms are expected to have implications for property buyers, developers and Zimbabweans in the diaspora seeking to invest in land and housing.

For investors, the key issue will be whether the reforms translate into faster title processing, clearer land records and stronger safeguards against multiple sales and fraudulent transactions.

Zimbabwe title deeds digitisation