PFR has helped clarify the common misconception that registration of title is inconsistent with community, lineage or family ownership, and that it connotes individual ownership. Local communities, especially in the Korhogo region, view land as a collective resource bequeathed from ancestors and held in trust for future generations. The oldest living male member of the village often acts as landlord and allocates land rights. PFR has also demonstrated that customary control and distribution of land among communities is changing. Landlords and lineage chiefs still retain control over land, overseeing a large percentage of transactions including sales, however, rights are becoming fragmented.
Some communities claim that they sell cultivation rights but still possess the land.
Very little land is legally transferred according to formal Ivoirian laws. The PFR has created a first documented baseline inventory of land rights. Long-term divisibility of commonly owned and titled land title is allowed based upon a request by members of the group that owns the land that is endorsed by village authorities and registered by local government representatives. Under the new system, government officials will no longer have the power to give new residents use rights for village lands without the permission of village authorities. Traditional land rights will be reinforced and complemented by the governmental monitoring of land registration and transactions.