Land and property in Indonesia are generally governed by the Indonesian Agrarian Law, which is quite a complex piece of legislation that reflects and adopts customary (adat) law developed over hundreds of years at rural village level, and was further modified by Dutch colonial rule. Prior to the issuance of the Agrarian Law, adat law and Western law coexisted, governing land registration for Indonesians and foreigners respectively. The Agrarian Law aimed to create a uniform regime and end the dualism on land matters, while still maintaining the communal concepts applicable to land under adat law.
Under the Agrarian Law, the state is authorised to determine the proper use of land, the relationship between land and individuals or groups of individuals, and the consequences of legal actions concerning land.
In general, land status can be divided into two groups, namely state land and private land. For the latter, the Agrarian Law introduced the classification of land rights and a registration system, which has resulted in the issuance of land certificates by the National Land Agency (Badan Pertanahan Nasional / BPN). A land certificate is considered the strongest evidence of a land title right under Indonesian law, and records, among other data, the land title rights, name of the title holder, the land area, the title period, the issuance date and security interests created upon the land. Regardless of the land registration system introduced by the Agrarian Law,
significant parts of private land in Indonesia remain unregistered and thus uncertificated.
Often the only documentation available to support a claim of rights is the girik rights, which is not evidence of title but rather a land tax receipt evidencing that the ‘holder or owner’ of the land has paid the tax for the land in question. While this often creates certain deficiencies
in terms of legal certainty, in practice, in the absence of a valid land rights certificate, the girik letter, supported by certain other supporting documents (such as statement letters issued by the local sub-district head, district head or village head confirming the history of the land) are
accepted as an indication of ‘ownership by possession’ to such land that has no certificate .
The most common land title rights in Indonesian practice are as follows. :
- Right of ownership (hak milik or freehold)
- Right to build (HGB)
- Right to cultivate (HGU)
- Right of management (hak pengelolaan)
- Right to use (hak pakai)
If you’d like to know further regarding this land rights, you can send your inquiries to our email address : mail@enplaw.id
