Buying property is one of the most significant financial decisions most people will ever
make. And when it comes to flats and townhouses in Zimbabwe, there’s a layer to the
transaction that most buyers don’t fully understand until something goes wrong.
Most people who buy a flat walk away believing they own it outright. They have a title
deed. They paid good money. They moved in. But look closely at that title deed and you’ll
find something that surprises a lot of buyers: what you actually own is an undivided share
in the land the building sits on not the flat itself.
Welcome to sectional titles under Section 27 of the Deeds Registries Act [Chapter 20:05].
It’s one of the most widely misunderstood areas of property law in Zimbabwe, and the gap
between what buyers think they’re getting and what the law actually says has real
consequences.
Why Zimbabwe Uses This System
Zimbabwe doesn’t yet have a standalone Sectional Titles Act. What we have instead is
Section 27 of the Deeds Registries Act a provision specifically designed for urban land that
emerged to fix the problems of the older “block share” system. Under block shares, an entire building sat under one title deed and buyers received company shares rather than a direct real right in the property. No individual title. No mortgage. No ability to sell to a buyer who needed bank financing. The whole arrangement was commercially limiting and legally fragile.
Section 27 changed that. It allows a landowner to register a notarial deed against the title
deed, creating undivided shares in the land each one coupled with an exclusive right to
occupation of a specific unit. That coupling is everything. The law says the share and the
right to occupy are inseparable. You cannot have one without the other. The High Court
confirmed this in Sibanda v Pentaville Investments (Pvt) Ltd HH-14-03.
What “Exclusive Right of Occupation” Actually Means
This is where Section 27 gets interesting. The exclusive right of occupation is classified as a
real right not a personal right, not a contractual claim, but a right that attaches to the land
itself and binds whoever owns it. It survives transfers. It can be enforced. And critically it can be mortgaged. That last point matters enormously. Under the old block share system, you couldn’t bond your flat. Banks wouldn’t touch it because there was no individual title to secure. Section 27 fixed that. Your undivided share, coupled with your exclusive right of occupation, can serve as collateral for a mortgage bond opening the door to conventional home financing that was simply unavailable before.
For many Zimbabweans, that’s the difference between being able to buy a home and not.
How Sectionalisation Works in Practice
The process starts with a notary public. Before anything is registered, the notary conducts a title search to confirm the property is free of encumbrances. If there’s an existing mortgage bond over the land, the bondholder’s consent is required before the notarial deed can go anywhere near the Deeds Registry. Town planning compliance must also be confirmed, and the existing conditions of title checked for anything that might block sectionalisation. A land surveyor then prepares architectural plans and diagrams delineating each unit’s precise area. Alongside this, the notary drafts a constitution for the owners’ association the governance document that will bind every future owner in the development. It covers how the association is managed, what levies are payable, maintenance responsibilities, and how owners relate to one another.
Once lodged, the Registrar examines the notarial deed and endorses it on the title deed of the land. The property is now sectionalised. Individual units can be transferred by deed of transfer a process that mirrors a standard land transfer, with certain modifications that the conveyancer must observe.
Every purchaser of an undivided share becomes a member of the owners’ association automatically, and is bound by the notarial deed and constitution from the date of registration.
What Buyers Need to Know Before Signing
If you are purchasing a unit in a sectional title development a few things deserve careful attention before you commit. Ask to see the notarial deed and the constitution not just a summary, the actual documents. The owners’ association will have real power over how you use your property, what levies you pay, and what happens when disputes arise. You want to understand the governance structure before you’re bound by it. Confirm that the sectionalisation has been properly registered at the Deeds Registry. There are cases in Zimbabwe where developments have been sold informally, without the notarial deed ever having been registered. In those situations, buyers have neither a real right in the land nor an enforceable exclusive right to their unit. They are exposed and the legal process to remedy that is neither quick nor cheap. For developers, the message is straightforward: follow the process and follow the sequence. Surveyor, town planner, notary, Registrar. Professional input at every stage. Gaps here create title defects that are expensive and time-consuming to fix, and that ultimately hurt the people buying into your development.
A Final Word on What’s Coming
The Deeds Registries Regulations 2025 (SI 76/2025) have introduced significant changes to how deeds are processed in Zimbabwe, including the transition to a digitised, securitised registry system. For sectional title holders, this means your title deed will need to go through a mandatory validation process within two years of the regulations coming into effect. It is worth getting ahead of that rather than waiting for the deadline. Section 27 is a powerful provision. Used correctly, it gives buyers real, enforceable property rights and gives developers a commercially viable framework for multi-unit residential projects. But like all property law instruments, it rewards those who understand it and it punishes those who don’t.
Property law should not be intimidating. With the right advice, it is entirely navigable.