Mali

Registering Property in

Mali

Listed below is a detailed summary of the steps, time and cost involved in registering property, assuming a standardized case of an entrepreneur who wants to purchase land and a building that is already registered and free of title dispute.

The information appearing on this page was collected as part of the Doing Business project, which measures and compares regulations relevant to the life cycle of a small- to medium-sized domestic business in 183 economies. The most recent round of data collection for the project was completed in June 2011.

  • Standard Property Transfer

  • Property Value: XOF 14,354,765.24
  • City: Bamako

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No. Procedure Time to Complete Associated Costs
1 Verify the real identity of the proprietor and the situation of the title

The buyer should perform due diligence before entering into a sale agreement with the owner of the property. Due diligence can simply be done by requesting from the buyer the number of the property lot. With the given number, the buyer can personally go to the Land Registry and ask the register clerk to provide him with a certificate called “Réquisition Foncière”. This is done very promptly by searching the property lot number and making a copy of it. The information included in the certificate relates to property’s area, its exact location, the name of its actual owner (and all previous ones). It also includes all information relating to potential mortgages or liens encumbering it. The certificate engages the state’s responsibility and is more important than the deed of ownership presented by the seller. The deed can be outdated and not reflect the actual situation or it might be a fake.


Agency: Land Registry (“Bureau de la Conservation Foncière”) 		2 days 3,500 FCFA
2 Obtain an assessment of the true value of the property

It is common practice that the potential buyer hires a price expert to assess the true value of the property before the sale agreement. These are commonly called “courtiers informels de l’immobilier”. After investigating the place and the building these private experts provide a range of acceptable prices and charges 0.5% of the property value for their fees.
4 days 0.5 % of property value
3 Notary prepares sale agreement

The law requires that the sale agreement be notarized. It is common practice that parties also ask the notary to draft the sale agreement. Notary’s fees are regulated by decree n°7- 205/P-RM du 22 Juin 2007 , following the cumulative schedule shown above. This scheme makes the notary very wary to reflect the right price of sale in the sale contract. This is because parties may tend to understate the true value of the sale to avoid paying the right amount of tax. The parties should also pay 18% of the notary’s fees as a VAT for the state.

 2 days Notary fees (subject to 18 % VAT) according to the following cumulative scale: Property value (in FCFA) Notary fees Less than 2.500.000
4 Register the sale agreement with the Service des domaines et du Cadastre

The sale agreement should be registered with the Service des Domaines et du Cadastre. The registration fees are now 7% of the property value following the amendment of the "Loi Nº06-067 du 29 decembre 2006 portant code general des impots" published in the official gazette . The parties should also pay stamp duties. Stamps cost CFA1500 per page for approximately 4 pages. The parties should also pay a fixed registry tax of CFA 5,000.

Agency: Service des domaines et du Cadastre de la zone concernée) 		2 days 7 % of the property value + 6,000 FCFA (stamp duties) + 5,000 (Registration fees)
5 Final transfer of the property title with the Land Registry (“Bureau de la Conservation Foncière”)

The transfer fees are 0.90% of the value of the property divided as follows: 1) 0.60% for the state and 2) 0.30% for the Registry employees as part of their salary. *Before doing the final transfer, the land register forwards the whole file to the verification commission (“Commission de Verification”) that checks whether the price stated in the contract of sale corresponds to the commission’s price criteria. In case the commission contests the price, the parties are requested to come back to the Land Registry and pay the difference in taxes. The parties can choose to contest the commission decision by going to court. In the latter case, delays are substantial. If the commission does not object to the stated price, the application proceeds and the director of the Land Registry makes the final transfer of property. The Registry will then issue a final deed of property in the name of the new buyer.


Agency: Land Registry (“Bureau de la Conservation Foncière”) 		7 - 30 days 0.90 % property value
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