Customary (ulayat) land in English: Permen ATR/BPN 14/2024

Some Bali land belongs to customary communities rather than to anyone in particular. How national law registers it, and how an outsider can lawfully use it.

Permen ATR/BPN 14/2024, the articles a buyer meets, in order

Much of Bali’s land sits inside customary communities, and some of it is held by them rather than by any individual. National land law recognizes customary (ulayat) land and, since 2024, sets out how it is registered and how others can use it. The regulation replaced Permen ATR/BPN 18/2019 on ulayat land administration (Permen ATR/BPN 14/2024 (JDIH BPK status: Mencabut)).

What ulayat land is, and where it is not

Hak ulayat is the authority a customary-law community has under adat over a territory, to draw on its resources, land included, arising from an unbroken material and spiritual bond (Permen ATR/BPN 14/2024 art. 1(1)). Ulayat land is land in a customary community's territory that still exists in fact and carries no land right (Permen ATR/BPN 14/2024 art. 1(4)). It still exists only where there is a group still bound by its adat order, an ulayat territory that is its living space, and adat rules on managing it that are still followed (Permen ATR/BPN 14/2024 art. 2(2)).

The limit that matters most to a buyer is article 3: hak ulayat is not exercised over land already held under a land right, land used for public or social facilities, land already acquired lawfully, or former swapraja land abolished by the UUPA conversion (Permen ATR/BPN 14/2024 art. 3). Certificated land is outside it. Land offered with no certificate and described as “village land” or “adat land” is exactly where the question arises — and, on our reading, where a sale by an individual may not be a sale of anything the individual holds. Buying land that is not yet certified.

From recognition to a right others can hold

Administration runs through inventory and identification, measuring and mapping, and entry in the ulayat land register (Permen ATR/BPN 14/2024 art. 4(3)), and mapping involves an overlay check against the regency spatial plan or RDTR, village administrative maps, forest maps and others (Permen ATR/BPN 14/2024 art. 11(4)). The community itself must be recognized by a regional by-law, or a governor's or regent's regulation or decision, establishing the community (Permen ATR/BPN 14/2024 art. 14(4)).

A recognized community may then apply for hak pengelolaan over registered ulayat land (Permen ATR/BPN 14/2024 art. 15(1)). On that HPL the decision template sets the terms: HGU, HGB or hak pakai granted to third parties under a land-use agreement, transferable or mortgageable only with the HPL holder's consent; unused land returns to the community (Permen ATR/BPN 14/2024 Lampiran IV, decision template (diktum KELIMA-KEDELAPAN)). Those are the same mechanics as any HPL — the holder’s consent for every sale or mortgage — with the land going back to the community, not the State. Rights on HPL land.

Without HPL, the community may cooperate with third parties by agreement (Permen ATR/BPN 14/2024 art. 16(2)); land of a group of members may become hak milik as common land in the name of a group of community members (Permen ATR/BPN 14/2024 art. 17(1)) — which, being hak milik, a foreigner cannot hold. A possible incentive on registration is a waiver of BPHTB and of non-tax state revenue (Permen ATR/BPN 14/2024 art. 22(2)).

Bali’s desa adat

Bali regulates its customary villages by provincial by-law (Perda 4/2019 on desa adat, implemented by Governor Regulation 4/2020). The by-law is not on the national legal database we read from, and we have not read it, so we do not say whether, or how, a desa adat counts as a community for this regulation. Ask the land office whether a plot is in the ulayat land register before relying on anything said about its status.

This is commentary, not legal advice. Dealing with customary land in Bali also involves the desa adat itself, under rules this site has not read.

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