Rebuilding property rights in Libya
Global lessons learned and potential solutions to the Libya property registration challenge
Turning a frozen registry into an engine for growth Libya's national land registry has been effectively closed since 2011. For more than a decade, the great majority of property transactions have taken place outside any state register, recorded only in private contracts, notarized agreements, and files held by individual lawyers.
The result is a property system in which ownership can no longer be verified with confidence by a bank, an investor, a court, or the state itself.
This paper proposes a pragmatic, sequenced solution: the creation of a new registration authority, operating in parallel to and under the authority of the Libyan state. It is deliberately incremental and evidence-based: a new, state-governed registration authority that re-issues clean, verifiable title numbers to the undisputed majority of properties, while counting and quarantining the disputed minority until they can be resolved fairly.
It begins where the impact is greatest and the politics most balanced and records the land-use class of every plot so that the silent loss of Libya's scarce agricultural land is halted and reviewed rather than legalized by default. It restarts lending and investment now, contains rather than spreads Law No. 4, and gives the state an accurate inventory of national property. Georgia, Saudi Arabia, and Rwanda show that each element of this design has already worked in practice, including in a divided or post-conflict setting.
Learn more about the proposal in our report.
Libya’s property system
The scale of Libya’s property registration challenge and the economic opportunity linked to reform
A registry effectively frozen since 2011
Libya’s land registry has not operated as a fully live public record for years, contributing to uncertainty over ownership and transactions.
Domestic credit to the private sector stood at 13.04% of GDP in 2024
Libya’s low level of private-sector credit reflects, in part, property wealth that cannot be reliably pledged as collateral.
Rwanda’s reform helped unlock approximately $2.6bn in mortgages
International experience shows that systematic land registration can support lending, revenue generation and broader economic activity.
