What Registered and Surveyed Land Actually Means in Ghana

Registration and surveying are separate legal requirements, handled by different people. A surveyed plot may never have been registered, and a registered plot is only as reliable as the plan behind it.

What does registered and surveyed land mean in Ghana?

In a deed registration area, which is most of Ghana outside the declared title registration districts, registration now requires an approved plan, so newly registered land has a survey behind it. The plan is only as reliable as when and how it was made, and a surveyed plot may never have been registered at all.

Surveying comes first

Before land can be described in a legal document, someone has to establish where its boundaries sit. A surveyor measures and marks out the land and produces a plan showing its size, shape and position. In a deed registration area such as the Akuapem Hills, the Land Act, 2020 makes this a condition of registration. A document cannot be registered unless it describes the land well enough for the Land Registrar to identify its location and boundaries. It also needs an approved plan attached, or a reference to an approved plan already attached to a registered document. The plan must be prepared by an official surveyor or a licensed surveyor, and approved by the Director of the Survey and Mapping Division of the Lands Commission.

Registration comes after

Once the land is surveyed and described, the transaction itself, the deed, lease or other document that grants a right in the land, gets registered. As covered in an earlier article in this series, that happens through title registration in declared districts such as Greater Accra and parts of Kumasi, and through deed registration everywhere else, including the Akuapem Hills. Registration creates the legal record. Surveying is meant to make that record match the ground.

Why both matter, separately

Since 23 December 2020, a document in a deed registration area cannot be registered without an approved plan, or a reference to one already on file, so newer registrations have a survey behind them. Older registrations are different. The previous law, the Lands Registry Act, 1962, only required a description the registrar thought sufficient to identify the land, and that description could be given by reference to a plan, with no rule in that section that a surveyor prepare it or that anyone approve it. We could not confirm how many older registrations rest on weaker plans.

A plan can also fall short. A new document may rely on a plan already attached to an earlier registered document, so if that earlier plan was off, the error can travel with it. The result is a registered document resting on boundaries nobody has verified, and that is one way overlapping claims arise: two registered documents, each describing land that physically overlaps the other.

The reverse also happens. Land can be surveyed with an accurate, professional plan and never registered, which means there is no legal record of who holds a right in it.

The Supreme Court has said how much a survey plan can matter in a dispute. In Aku-Brown Danquah v. Lanquaye Odartey in 2016, the Court held that a site plan which clearly marks out the land, signed by a licensed surveyor and supported by the recognised boundary owners, is enough to show which land is meant. In plain terms, when ownership is contested, the survey plan often settles which land the argument is about.

Take two neighbouring families who each sell an adjoining plot to different buyers, years apart. Each sale is registered under the law in force before December 2020. The first plot was described by reference to an old sketch plan that nobody checked on the ground, and its boundary quietly runs ten feet into the neighbouring plot. Both buyers hold registered documents and neither is lying. The dispute that surfaces is about where the boundary really sits, and the plans become the central evidence.

What else registration needs

In a deed registration area, a document also has to be duly stamped and proved, and it must carry any consents and approvals the transaction requires. Unpaid stamp duty is the gap that decided Erskine v. Okpoti, which our article on land title and deed registration explains.

A few questions worth answering upfront

Who can prepare a valid survey plan?

In a deed registration area, a plan attached to a document for registration must be prepared by an official surveyor or a licensed surveyor. A licensed surveyor certifies the plan, and in every case the Survey and Mapping Division approves it.

What if the seller shows me a plan that was never filed with the Lands Commission?

Then you have a survey without registration. A plan that exists only in someone’s file does not create a legal record. Ask whether the Survey and Mapping Division has approved the plan and whether it is attached to, or referred to in, a registered document, not just whether a plan exists.

What to actually check

When someone tells you land is “registered and surveyed,” ask to see both pieces separately. A registration document confirms a legal record exists. A survey plan, ideally one that has been used to update the registered description, confirms that the record matches the ground. Before you pay, have your own licensed surveyor walk the boundary against the plan. The Land Act makes it an offence to wilfully or unlawfully destroy, move or alter a boundary or survey mark, so missing markers are worth asking about. We cover the search itself in How to Verify a Land’s Registration Status in Ghana. The survey and engineering work behind Forest Hill is set out on the Estate page.

Want to see the survey and registration details for a plot at Forest Hill? Ask for them through the enquiry form.

Where this comes from

Land Act, 2020 (Act 1036): sections 206 to 210 in the chapter on deeds registration, covering registrable documents and the description, approved plan, stamping and consents required by section 207(2), plans, surveyors and approval by the Director of the Survey and Mapping Division under section 208, and proof of documents by oath under sections 209 and 210; sections 26 and 27 on boundary marks; section 282 repealing the Lands Registry Act, 1962 and the Land Title Registration Act, 1986. Lands Registry Act, 1962 (Act 122), section 4, as it stood before its repeal. Aku-Brown Danquah v. Lanquaye Odartey, Civil Appeal J4/4/2016, Supreme Court, 29 June 2016.

This article was updated in October 2026.