During the last decades, public policies set in place in order to reach more egalitarian societies in Latin America have been based on the conviction that the structural transformation of society necessarily involves the reform of legal and constitutional texts. Despite the meager redistributive results, the belief in the instru- mental use of law persists. Thus, taking the example of land reform in Colombia, the article presents a critical analysis of this faith in the law as an instrument for society's transformation. The aim is to demonstrate how the various interpretations of property, its regulation, the relevant actors and institutions, end up determining the content and distributive thrust of progressive legal reforms. Resumen: El objetivo principal del articulo es examinar decadas de reformas legales y constitucionales encaminadas a mejorar la distri- bucion de la tierra al interior de la sociedad Colombiana. Tomo como punto de partida la siguiente observacion. A pesar de algunas trans- formaciones positivas en la economia y la sociedad, el marco norma- tivo ha fracasado en lograr alterar significativamente la estructura socioeconomica existente y lograr sociedades mas igualitarias. A pesar