IF I AM TAKING CARE OF MY ELDERLY PARENTS’ CUSTOMARY LAND, DOES THIS GIVE ME ANY RIGHTS OVER THE LAND ?

After Kiiza finished senior six, he decided to move back to his ancestral home to help his parents take care of their land because they lived in the city. He decided to start rearing animals and growing crops on this land. 5 months later, his parents decided to retire and move back to the village and asked Kiiza to vacate their land. Kiiza however feels that because he helped them look after their land when they couldn’t do it themselves, he too has a right over the land. His father has asked him to get off his land within the next three weeks or he shall involve authorities. Kiiza now finds himself stranded because he feels that he equally has rights over this land and should not be asked to leave. What should he do? 

As we have already mentioned in a previous post, customary land is owned and passed on according to the practices of a given community. The common forms of passing on land are sale, inheritance or gifting it. If the process does not go against the customs of the culture under which the customary land is held, this land may be passed from one owner to another.

However, as we noted on gifting land, there must be proof that there was an intention to indeed give the land away as a gift and that this gift was then accepted, and the land was used by the person it was given to as its only owner. When you HELP your parents take care of land, there is no clarity that they have intended to give that land to you. If you also cannot show that after they gave it to you, you have been using the land alone (without their involvement), then there is no way you can say that they have gifted it to you.

When a child helps his or her elderly parents take care of their land, it does NOT mean this land now belongs to this child. Therefore, this child cannot sell, gift, or use this land as they want to without the permission of their parents who remain the owners of the land under the law.

The only thing Kiiza can do is relocate and find another place to rear his animals and grow his crops because according to the law, he has no right over his parents’ land.

#BarefootLaw

#osutayusuf