Rutendo Matinyarare@matinyarare
𝗥𝗜𝗦𝗞 𝗢𝗙 𝗟𝗢𝗦𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗧𝗜𝗧𝗟𝗘 𝗗𝗘𝗘𝗗𝗦 𝗝𝗨𝗟𝗬 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟳. 𝗣𝗔𝗥𝗧 𝟭
Unbeknown to most Zimbabweans, in July 2025, the government enacted Statutory Instrument 176 of 2025 or the Deeds Registrations Regulations. These regulations require every Zimbabwean to validate their current title deeds by end of July 2027 in order to obtain the new securitized title deed.
If you have not completed this process by end of July next year, you risk losing title to your property through disputes, government forfeiture, or outright theft by opportunists working within the system.
The process involves five phases:
1. Document Auditing and Retrieval: This process entails verifying all your papers with your lawyer to ensure you have everything. This includes examining your purchase agreement, receipts, transfer fees, tax clearance certificate, capital gains tax, and proof of payments.
2. Rates and Council Clearances:
Next will be verification that you are fully paid up on your municipal rates and taxes in order to obtain a clearance certificate. From there, you will also need clearance from ZESA. If any monies are outstanding, you will need to settle them before receiving your clearance.
3. ZIMRA Clearance:
ZIMRA will assess whether you are fully paid up on your property taxes and capital gains tax. This process will also check whether you paid fair value for your property to determine if adequate capital gains tax and transfer fees were paid.
If your property is deemed to have been undervalued when you purchased, it will be re-evaluated and you will be liable to pay the shortfall in taxes, transfer fees, and penalties before receiving tax clearance.
4Lodgement:
Once you have your municipal, ZESA, and ZIMRA clearances, alongside your title deeds and the other documents verified in the first process, it becomes mandatory to engage a conveyancer to take you through the remaining steps.
Here, you and the lawyer must go together to sign DR forms and submit your ID, biometrics, company registration papers, or trust documents if the property belongs to either of the two.
To avoid becoming a victim of fraud, try not to give lawyers power of attorney to handle such sensitive matters because properties are often lost during these processes.
5. Surrendering Documents:
The final step is submitting all the documents collected above: title deeds; receipts; capital gains records; municipality, ZESA, ZIMRA clearances and DR forms.
If you have lost your title deeds, you will need certified copies and must undertake a notarial process where you place an advert in the newspaper notifying the public for 30 days that the property is yours, allowing anyone wishing to challenge ownership to do so.
This title deed validation process has been promoted as a way to secure title deeds through digitisation. While securing title deeds may indeed be beneficial, it is also undoubtedly a money making opportunity for municipalities, ZESA, ZIMRA, conveyancers, and Kuda Tagwirei’s Dokma, which will digitise the title and offer securitized deed.
Now here is the threat. If this process is handled in bad-faith and profiteering intent, as has happened with mining rights and as they are attempting to do with CAB3, many people are going to lose properties because:
(i) Where there are multiple people claiming title, a vetting process will be required. As seen in mining fraud cases, people within the current Deeds Office can then collude with wealthy individuals to create duplicate title deeds. Property can then be lost during verification or court processes where members of the Deeds Office and judiciary work with cartels to seize properties, as is happening in mining.
(ii) Where title deeds are lost or not verified by July 2027, government could potentially take over such properties and sell them to cartels.
The fact that private entities such as lawyers and cartel owned Dokuma are involved means there is room for the usual fraud and corruption.
