This paper reviews New Zealand policy that replaced customary tenure with titles to Maori land, focusing on issues relevant to South Africa. Massive redistribution of Maori land is explained in terms of dubious reasons for titling and inadequate property rights conferred by the programme. Emphasis then shifts to institutions that emerged to deal with problems of landlessness and low farm incomes created by titling, and to the success of private incorporations and trusts in particular. It is concluded that such institutions may, under certain conditions, be useful to smallholders in the homelands and to groups of farmers who acquire freehold land in South Africa.