Completion Time Frame: 2 days
Completion Costs: BTN 1,500
Points to Note:
Seller brings the title or gives the number of the title to the notary. Notary sends ‘requisition’ to Service des Domaines, so that the Service tells them about the ownership and the pending encumbrances on the property.

Step 2: The sale agreement is signed and authenticated at the public notary

Completion Time Frame: 2 days
Completion Costs: 3% of property value, according to official scale of notary fees )(18% VAT on notary fees)
Points to Note:
Parties file the sale agreement at the public notary where they sign the contract and the sale is authenticated. The scale of fees is as follows, noting property value followed by percentage fees to pay: 0 – 5 million francs: 4.5%, 5 – 20 million francs: 3%, 20 – 50 million francs: 1.5%, 50 million francs and above: 0.75%.

Step 3: Registration of the sale deed at the Registry of Deeds

Completion Time Frame: 3 days
Completion Costs: 8% of property value + Stamp Duty of 800 XOF per page (It is assumed the Sale Deed consists of 4 pages, and 3 copies are required.)
Points to Note:
During this step the registry verifies if there are any encumbrances still linked to the property and if the transfer is valid. The registration tax was lowered from 12% to 8% property value with the new Finance Law of 2007, which also raised stamp duties from 300 to 800F per page.

Step 4: The buyer files for a transfer of title at the Land Registry

Completion Time Frame: 3 – 4.5 months
Completion Costs: 0.3% of property value
Points to Note:
The long delay is due to the workload of the only one cadastre serving all of Benin.
The government is sponsoring the transformation of possessory titles into property titles in certain zones (the state pays for 400.000 out of the 500.000 CFA it normally costs). This only concerns 2% of the land so far. The project proceeds zone by zone and all the inhabitants of the zone need to agree with the plan before it starts.