Limiting foreign ownership of land in South Africa

14 February 2015
President Jacob Zuma announced the Land Holdings Bill, a new proposed law that will
prohibit foreign ownership of land in the country, in the State of the Nation Address
on Thursday, 12 February 2015.
Once the Bill is assented to by the President, foreign nationals can only be entitled to
long term leasing of land with a minimum of 30 years and will not be allowed to buy
land in South Africa.
The Bill will also regulate the amount of land that any individual can own, the limit
being 12000 (twelve thousand) hectares- an approximate equivalent of two farms. If
any single individual owns above that limit, the government would buy the excess
land and redistribute it. The Bill will soon be sent to Cabinet for approval, after which
will be a process of public consultation and thereafter it will be submitted for the
necessary Parliamentary procedures before being assented to by the President.
The practice of limiting land ownership by foreign nationals and juristic persons is an
established practice internationally.
According to the proposed policy:
1. Foreign nationals and juristic persons are understood as non-citizens as well as
juristic persons whose dominant share holder or controller is a foreign controlled
enterprise, entity or interest. Hence not all immigrants to South Africa will be
excluded from land ownership;
2. This category of foreign nationals that are non-citizens will not be able to own land
in freehold from the time the policy is passed into law; they will be allowed a long
term lease of 30 to 50 years.
3. It is recognised that this cannot apply retrospectively without constitutional
infringements and as such those who have already acquired freehold would not have
their tenure changed by the passing of the proposed law (the Regulation of Land
Holdings Bill).
However, in such instances the Right of First Refusal will apply in favour of another
South African citizen in freehold or the state if the land is deemed strategic.
4. Furthermore, environmentally and security sensitive lands as well as those that
are of historic and have cultural significance, and strategic lands (for land reform and
socio-economic development) will be classified by law and land ownership by foreign
nationals (non-citizens) in these areas will be discouraged.

5. The policy will be affected through a call for compulsory land holdings
disclosures[1]. These disclosures will be in terms of race, nationality, gender, extent
of land owned and its use. The process will be managed through a Land
Commission[2] established, amongst others, to call for these disclosures, collect and
assess the information and maintain it in collaboration with the national deeds
registry.
The problems that this policy seeks to address include:
1. The need to secure our limited land for food security and address the land
injustice of more than 300 years of colonialism and apartheid.
45% of population (23 million South Africans) live on or below the poverty. 58% of
this poverty stricken people are in rural areas[3]; Access to a land allotment for
households and rural entrepreneurs' and enterprises has shown to go a long way in
addressing equity and poverty (two parts of our triple challenges).
2. Furthermore, in many instances high value agricultural land has had its use
changed to luxury and leisure uses and environmentally sensitive lands have also
been inappropriately developed;
3. In some parts of the country escalations in prices have been experienced which
have made land in these areas inaccessible to citizens;
4. The proposed policy makes provisions for exemptions to access lands in classified
areas based on certain conditions, primarily developmental.
Issued by: The Presidency
Pretoria