STANDARDIZED PROPERTY
Property value: 360,363,384
City: Maputo

Registration Requirements:

 
Procedure 1*. Obtain a Real Estate Registry certificate of the property from the Real Estate Registration Office
Time to complete: 3-14 days
Cost to complete: MZM 75,000
Comment: A real estate registry certificate is obtained at the Conservatória do Registo Predial.
The real property registry certificate shows all the owners of the property/ beneficiaries of the use and benefit right, and is valid for 90 days.
If the owner does not have a copy of the current real property registration, then the DCU reference number must be obtained in order for the Registrar to locate the book and page on which the property is registered.
 
Procedure 2*. Obtain a certificate from the Tax Authority regarding the value of the property
Time to complete: 3-14 days
Cost to complete: MZM 100,000
Comment: A certificate (registro matricial) with the value of the property is obtained from the tax authority or Repartição das Finanças.
Procedure 3. Lawyer prepares the draft Sale and Purchase Agreement, to be executed in the form of a Public Deed
Time to complete: 1-14 days
Cost to complete: MZM 3,000,000 - MZM 12,000,000
Comment: A lawyer will prepare the sale and purchase agreement. It is necessary to have the underlying land and property title deed and real property registration in order to have all the necessary property description and land plot demarcation details. The form this takes varies from rural areas to municipalities. The actual sales instrument is relatively simple but the additional administrative/registry detail complicates the preparation.
Procedure 4. Payment of transfer tax (SISA) at the Municipal Tax Office
Time to complete: 3 days
Cost to complete: 2% of property value (SISA-transfer tax) + 20% of the transfer tax (municipal charge-‘adicional autartico')
Comment: The property must have been registered for real property rates (municipal or national), all of the real property tax must have been paid (for which a tax quittance must be obtained), and the owner and the purchaser must be registered for tax purposes (NUIT).
A SISA tax receipt is obtained to be submitted with the sale and purchase agreement to the Notary and the name of the buyer is registered with the Tax Office.
The SISA tax has been reformed by Decree 46/2004 of October 27, cutting it from previous levels around 10%. In the past, the 10% tax that applied to Maputo was not fully paid since the market value of the property was never quoted. This change unifies the level of the transfer tax with the rest of the country that already had taxes around 2%. The lower tax attempts to give incentives for formal registration (that is still low in Mozambique).
 
Procedure 5. The lawyer/parties submit the draft Sale and Purchase Agreement to the Public Notary to verify and issue the notarial deed of purchase
Time to complete: 1-8 days 
Cost to complete: 0.2% of property value (stamp duty) + Notarial fees according to the following schedule: 0.04% of property value up to the first MZM 5 billion + 0.001% of property value for the excess of MZM 5 billion.
Comment: The lawyer/parties submit the draft Sale and Purchase Agreement to the Public Notary, who verifies the documentation and prepares the Notarial Deed of Sale and Purchase for signature and then after signature issues the notarial deed of the purchase. The Real Estate Registry certificate and the SISA payment certificate must be submitted, together with Companies' Registry certificates of the parties and copies of the ID's of their representatives who will execute the Notary Deed on their behalf. Copies of quota-holders/directors resolutions and/or powers of attorney may also be required pursuant to the relevant companies' Articles of Association.
In some cases it may be possible to notarize the deed faster if the parties, instead of the notary, prepare the deed themselves and give it to the notary on a disk to notarize.
 
Procedure 6. Apply for registration of the building at the Real Estate Registry Office
Time to complete: 2-7 days
Cost to complete: Registration fees according to the following schedule: 0.04% of property value up to the first MZM 5 billion + 0.001% of property value for the excess of MZM 5 billion.
Comment: The Notary Deed of Sale and Purchase is submitted to the Real Estate Registry Office, together with an application requesting the registration of ownership over the property, on the buildings and of the right of use and fruition over the land, in the name of the buyer.
Simultaneously with the request for registration (or sequentially depending on the practice), a certificate of the registration is requested. Preferably an integral certificate is obtained which provides the owner with copies of the pages on which the title is recorded. This is a cautionary measure in the event that the Registry Books are damaged or destroyed (as happened in the 2000 Floods) or disappear somehow.
 
Procedure 7*. Submit the Notary Deed at the Municipal Tax Office
Time to complete: 3-14 days 
Cost to complete: MZM 150,000
Comment: The Notary Deed is submitted to the Municipal Tax Office by the parties, together with an application requesting the registration of the buyer as the owner of the property for purposes of Property Municipal Tax Registration. 
Procedure 8*. Submit the Notary Deed at the Cadastre Services Registry
Time to complete: 7-14 days 
Cost to complete: MZM 150,000
Comment: This procedure is to register the land (use) in the name of the buyer. The Notary Deed is submitted to the Cadastre Services Registry by the parties, together with an application for registration of the property in favor of the buyer, for purposes of updating the Cadastre. If there is a land use and benefit title, the amendment of the title is requested. The new owners name is registered inside the title document as is the cross-reference to the Real Property Registry recordings.
 
Note: Procedures sometimes take place simultaneously. Instances of this are marked with an asterisk (*).