Serving clients in Ethiopia and abroad — Amharic & English +251 91 326 2742  ·  info@workinehlawoffice.com

Practice Area

Real Estate & Construction Law

In Ethiopia, land belongs to the state and what you buy is a bundle of use rights and buildings. Verifying exactly what that bundle contains — before money moves — is what we do.

Property is where careful people lose the most money in Ethiopia: double sales, inherited claims surfacing after transfer, buildings that exceed their permits, lease land with unpaid arrears. Our practice is built around preventing those outcomes, and unwinding them when clients come to us late.

How we help

  • Title and encumbrance verification at the Addis Ababa land administration before purchase
  • Sale agreements, payment structuring and escrow-style protections for buyers and sellers
  • Transfer registration and follow-through until the title certificate is in your name
  • Commercial and residential lease drafting and disputes
  • Construction contracts: scope, variations, delay and defects — for owners and contractors
  • Litigation over ownership, boundaries, inheritance claims and broken sale agreements

Due diligence is the product

Our pre-purchase report tells you who actually holds the right, what debts and disputes attach to it, whether the building matches its permit, and what the lease obligations are. Clients have walked away from bad deals on the strength of two pages — the cheapest legal advice they ever bought.

Who we act for

Home buyers (including diaspora purchasing from abroad), developers, landlords, commercial tenants, and contractors on private and public projects.