At the day of the Independence (30 July of 1980), every lands became the Government’s and the custom owners’ property. Consequently, the land tenure system in Vanuatu is particular as it relies on a land rent system which is not always well seen until it is understood. It somehow respects the ground of the natives while offering every advantages of any other land tenure system. The rents’ length may vary between a period of 50 or 75 years.

The tenure system is divided into two parts: the urban areas and the rural areas. For the first ones, Port-Vila and Luganville (the only urban centres in Vanuatu), the lands are managed by the Government.
In the rural areas, it is the custom owners who are the interlocutor. The lease starts when the custom owner agrees to grant a lease.

At the end of the lease the owner who doesn’t renew it must pay an indemnification equal to the value of all the modifications brought since the granting of the lease. A recent law allows at any moment in the course of a lease to renew it.

 Each year, the owner of a lease pays a ground rental which varies according to the surface and the location of the land (generally the annual rental is about 1% of the unimproved value of the land).

It is not necessary to reside in Vanuatu or to be employed in Vanuatu to acquire a lease, whether it is commercial or residential, and to earn an income from it.

The Vanuatu Parliament recently published the Strata Title Act. It is now possible to strata title existing buildings and to create strata titles for any new commercial or residential real estate.