Buying from Nairobi, London or Dubai is ordinary and it works. What makes it go wrong is not distance — it is relying on one person on the ground who is also the person selling to you, or introduced by them.
Separate the roles
Three jobs must be done by three different interests: someone sells, someone verifies, someone represents you. If the same person or network is doing more than one of them, nobody is checking anything.
Instruct your own lawyer, chosen and paid by you, not recommended by the seller. Their job is the search, the encumbrances, the seller's capacity to sell, and the agreement.
Power of attorney
You will need someone able to sign and register in Uganda. That authority should be specific — this plot, this transaction — rather than a general power to deal with your affairs. Give it to your lawyer or to a family member with no connection to the seller. Never to the seller, their agent, or anyone they introduced.
Insist on seeing it, not being told about it
- A copy of the title, before any money moves.
- A search result your lawyer obtained, not one forwarded to you.
- Dated photographs and a video walk of the actual boundaries, with the surveyor present.
- A video call from the plot, live, so you can ask to be shown a particular corner.
A live call you direct is worth more than any album you are sent. Photographs can be of somewhere else.
Pay in a way that leaves a trail
Bank transfer to an account in the registered name of the seller. If you are buying from a company, the account should be the company's, not a director's. Pay in stages tied to things that have actually happened — a deposit on signing, the balance on transfer — and get a receipt for each one.
Be wary of urgency. "Another buyer is coming tomorrow" is sometimes true and is always the oldest way of stopping someone doing their checks.
Follow the transfer through
Paying in full is not owning. The transfer has to be lodged and registered, and until it is, the register still shows the seller. Ask for the transfer documents and, when it completes, a fresh search result in your own name. That last search is what proves the thing happened.
Ruhaama buyers can follow a purchase from their own account — what has been paid, what is outstanding, and how far the transfer has actually got — from anywhere. See how buying works.