Law of 4 June 1936 giving special guarantees to those farming the land methodically
- A five-year agricultural lease gives protection against eviction by a third party's claim.
- Three conditions: authentic and transcribed lease with survey record, at least 50 hectares worked, and a lessor holding a title deed at signature.
- The law expressly derogates from the civil code on the contract of lease.
- The 50-hectare floor excludes the smallholders who work most cultivated land.
The law of 4 June 1936, published in Le Moniteur No. 50 of 11 June 1936 under Sténio Vincent.
Article 1 protects a lessee against eviction arising from a third party's claim on the land, on three cumulative conditions: the lease and its survey record are drawn in authentic form and transcribed; the lessee works at least 50 hectares; and at signature the lessor occupied the land under a deed attributing or declaring ownership. The preamble says outright that the law derogates from the civil code's provisions on the contract of lease.
Insecure tenure is the standing constraint on agricultural investment in Haiti, because a tenant who can be dispossessed by a competing claim will not plant a tree or build irrigation. This law is an early attempt to fix that for commercial-scale operations, and its 50-hectare floor excluded the smallholders who work most of the cultivated land. The corpus holds the cadastre draft bill, the INARA instruments and the land-tenure diagnostics that return to the same problem.
How to cite
Legislative Body of Haiti, Law of 4 June 1936 giving special guarantees to those farming the land methodically, https://www.fao.org/faolex/country-profiles/general-profile/en/?iso3=HTI
- Rights holder
- Government of Haiti