Introduction

The Department of Deeds, Companies and Intellectual Property (DCIP) is a key arm of the Ministry of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs. It is one of the very first offices set up to be set up by the colonial authorities to oversee land alienation and to set up a registration system for immovable property. Even to date, the Department still carries the mandate to facilitate the registration and maintenance of records pertaining to property rights, corporate entities, and intellectual creations.

This article will focus on the recent developments relating to alienation of land and registration of immovable property in particular.

The primary legislation for administration of alienated land is the Deeds Registry Act (Chapter 20: 05). This Act has been amended in the recent past to upgrade the law to meet modern business demands such as electronic processing and archiving. This legislation is supported by other Acts of Parliament and a host of subsidiary legislation such as Regulations enacted through Statutory Instruments (SI).

Statutory Instrument 76 of 2025 (Deeds Registries Regulations 2025)

This SI also known as The Deeds Registries Regulations 2025, was Gazetted on 25 July 2025 and it effectively superseded the previous Deeds Regulations. This SI created considerable excitement among most citizens who own land and have title to such property. Part VI of these Regulations outlines provisions for Validation of all existing title deeds and replacement of the with Securitized title deeds. These replacements are electronically processed and printed on special paper embedded with security features. This provision is a bold step towards modernising property registration through a secure electronic platform and at the same time, taking cognisance of convenience to the system users.

Automation

The manual processing of paper based title deeds is not only cumbersome but it is not user friendly and is associated with delays and very poor turn around time. The need for an electronic system to handle transactions, and archiving cannot be overemphasized. Manual processing and handling of documents is both archaic and fraught with attendant risks such as fake titles in the market and fraud. Citizens were being shortchanged by unscrupulous individuals who took advantage of these weaknesses in the manual system to perpetrate fraud. The only viable solution to deal with these problems and bring about ease of doing business, is computerization.

The Digital Land Administration Platform (DLAP)

This system is the digital portal that has been developed to handle all title deeds transactions such as online processing and digital archiving. It is a state of the art system custom made for the land registration system of Zimbabwe taking into account the land tenure system and the current legislation. Processing of title deeds requires cross referencing to previous ownership history, thereby making it necessary to scan, capture and archive the full record of all properties. The scanning of records began more than three years ago and a good number of records are now on the platform. Scanning itself is an ongoing exercise and the intention is to scan and capture all records and to a point where we can retire all the paper based records.

Users of the system including conveyancers are now being registered on the platform and obtaining transactional credentials for purposes of accessing the and using the system. There is also an ongoing exercise to train strategic stakeholders to be able to access the system, lodge documents online and complete processes electronically. So far this training has been focused on conveyancers, but will be rolled out to other interested users.

Title Deeds Validation

As earlier mentioned, Part VI of SI 76 of 2025 outlines the need to bring all existing title deeds for verification in terms of authenticity, before a new digital title deed is processed and generated to replace the current bond paper document. The bond paper title deeds were subject to abuse by unscrupulous criminal elements which had significantly compromised the integrity of the entire database. Stakeholders could no longer trust documents presented by their clients making business decisions difficult and at times hazardous.

With the coming into operation of the DLAP system, it is now an opportunity to verify and validate all title deeds that are in the market so as to eliminate any fakes deeds. For purposes of proper management of the validation process, it is important that the process is initiated through registered conveyancers who undertake the task of verification of property ownership following a laid down checklist so as to be sure to upload only genuine title deeds onto the DLAP platform. For that purpose, conveyancers have been trained to handle these transactions and the onboarding of conveyancers is a continuous exercise and hopefully all conveyancers will go through this training and onboarding by the end of 2025. It must also be mentioned here that once a critical mass of conveyancers have been trained, the Deeds Office will completely migrate to digital online processing of documents on the portal.

The Summarized Procedure

  1. Present the original copy of your title deed to the conveyancer
  2. Conveyancer undertakes the verification process and uploads the details onto the DLAP portal.
  3. Examiners in the Deeds office digitally receive the application and examine against the existing record
  4. Upon completion of the examination, the title deed is printed on securitized paper.
  5. Conveyancer picks up the new copy of title deed and surrenders the old copy.
  6. Client then collects the title deed from the conveyancer

Decentralization

The current outreach and public awareness programs being undertaken have to be intensified so that citizens are better informed and properly guided to validate their title deeds on time. The policy decision is to take the Deeds Office closer to the citizens through decentralization, first to the provinces before eventually cascading even further down to the districts for better management of information and to ensure inclusion of all citizens. Currently the office is present only in Harare and Bulawayo.

Although the digital platform is available anywhere anytime on line, the need for accessibility of the Deeds Office by all citizens is equally critical. The decentralization agenda becomes even more relevant as the Deeds Office is implementing critical Government Programs such as the Presidential Title Deeds Program for urban settlements and the Land Tenure Reforms for agricultural land. These two programs are so important to the country that they have become a priority in terms of implementation. It's time to get closer to the people.

The Vision

It is our intention to pursue the following, in the next five years;

  1. To harness the power of AI to integrate all Land Administration in Zimbabwe, bringing together in close cooperation through digital interface all related offices and departments.
  2. To make sure that all land in Zimbabwe becomes bankable; there is no inferior land and there are no inferior regions, all land has potential value.
  3. To ensure that all land is known, accounted for, mapped and assigned.
  4. To restructure and relocate the Deeds Office to a more suitable location.

Much more progress is taking place in the office especially with the support of some stakeholders. We intend to continue to develop and grow these mutually beneficial collaborations.