Land Rights Project
The Problem
The irregularity of the property system in Honduras makes acquiring a land title nearly impossible for average citizens. Until recently, a Honduran resident needed to pass through 177 administrative steps and a series of government agencies to obtain a title for a single land parcel. These steps were governed by a network of laws and agencies that did little to communicate with one another and less to communicate with citizens. The average cost of legally acquiring land ownership, subdividing, or building is 1,080 days and $1,093 (U.S. dollars), an exorbitant price for most Hondurans.
Not only has this convoluted situation made it extremely hard for poor Hondurans to get proper titles to land they occupy; it also has set the stage for well-connected and unscrupulous groups and individuals who recognize the increasing value of land in Honduras to falsely claim large tracts of land poor people live on. These false landowners have filed lawsuits putting poor residents’ attempts to get titles at a standstill, extorted exorbitant amounts of “rent” from them, and in some instances even had them arrested or evicted and their houses destroyed.
Our Approach
AJS first got involved with the issue of urban land rights by working with the poor Tegucigalpa neighborhood of Flor del Campo, but we soon realized that people all across Honduras struggled with the same problem. In 2004, in response to 4 years of political pressure from AJS and a growing realization that the “old system” of property entitlement was quickly becoming unmanageable, the Honduran legislature passed a new property law and formed a new Property Institute to oversee the law’s implementation. While this law has the potential to dramatically improve poor families’ security of ownership and increase family and business investment in poor communities, powerful political and economic interests threaten to twist the process to their own ends, and in some cases have already succeeded in doing so.
AJS fights for just implementation of the law by:
Thanks in great part to AJS’s persistence in advocating for just application of the new Property Law, since the law was passed close to 30,000 families from poor neighborhoods have received clear, undisputable titles to their land—relieving them of years of stress and uncertainty about whether they would ever be able to take out a loan from the bank, whether they would have anything to leave to their children, or whether they would even be able to keep living in their homes. AJS’s intervention has also prevented hundreds of people from being unjustly evicted from their homes and hundreds more from paying lawyers making fraudulent promises to obtain titles faster than normal.
Land Rights Success Stories
5,495 Families Receive Titles
A Property Title for Gerson
A Land Title for Arnaldo
How Getting a Title Changed Bienvenida Carías' Life
Residents of 27 Tegucigalpa Neighborhoods Receive Land Titles
The irregularity of the property system in Honduras makes acquiring a land title nearly impossible for average citizens. Until recently, a Honduran resident needed to pass through 177 administrative steps and a series of government agencies to obtain a title for a single land parcel. These steps were governed by a network of laws and agencies that did little to communicate with one another and less to communicate with citizens. The average cost of legally acquiring land ownership, subdividing, or building is 1,080 days and $1,093 (U.S. dollars), an exorbitant price for most Hondurans.
Not only has this convoluted situation made it extremely hard for poor Hondurans to get proper titles to land they occupy; it also has set the stage for well-connected and unscrupulous groups and individuals who recognize the increasing value of land in Honduras to falsely claim large tracts of land poor people live on. These false landowners have filed lawsuits putting poor residents’ attempts to get titles at a standstill, extorted exorbitant amounts of “rent” from them, and in some instances even had them arrested or evicted and their houses destroyed.
Our Approach
AJS first got involved with the issue of urban land rights by working with the poor Tegucigalpa neighborhood of Flor del Campo, but we soon realized that people all across Honduras struggled with the same problem. In 2004, in response to 4 years of political pressure from AJS and a growing realization that the “old system” of property entitlement was quickly becoming unmanageable, the Honduran legislature passed a new property law and formed a new Property Institute to oversee the law’s implementation. While this law has the potential to dramatically improve poor families’ security of ownership and increase family and business investment in poor communities, powerful political and economic interests threaten to twist the process to their own ends, and in some cases have already succeeded in doing so.
AJS fights for just implementation of the law by:
- Educating leaders and residents of poor communities undergoing the titling process about their rights and responsibilities, thus ensuring they will not be tricked
- Making regular visits to Property Institute officials and others involved in land titling to make sure they do their jobs properly
- Taking legal action to prevent abuses of the law; and by publishing journalistic investigations related to property regularization and titling and attempts to bend the system.
Thanks in great part to AJS’s persistence in advocating for just application of the new Property Law, since the law was passed close to 30,000 families from poor neighborhoods have received clear, undisputable titles to their land—relieving them of years of stress and uncertainty about whether they would ever be able to take out a loan from the bank, whether they would have anything to leave to their children, or whether they would even be able to keep living in their homes. AJS’s intervention has also prevented hundreds of people from being unjustly evicted from their homes and hundreds more from paying lawyers making fraudulent promises to obtain titles faster than normal.
Land Rights Success Stories
5,495 Families Receive Titles
A Property Title for Gerson
A Land Title for Arnaldo
How Getting a Title Changed Bienvenida Carías' Life
Residents of 27 Tegucigalpa Neighborhoods Receive Land Titles
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