FAO : SD Dimensions : Institutions : Land tenure

Posted May 1997

Bertinoro I
High-level Technical Seminar:
Private and Public Sector Cooperation
in National Land Tenure Development in Eastern and Central Europe
University Residential Centre
Bertinoro, Italy
1-5 April 1997

Polish experience in creation of real property registration system

by Jerzy Kozlowski
Department of Land Management
Ministry of Agriculture and Food Economy
00-930 Warszawa, ul. Wspólna 30

1. Introduction

Land cadastre in an institution with a long tradition in Poland. It is a uniform, systematically updated, maintained on the national scale collection of information relating to land and buildings, their owners and other natural or physical persons that are in charge of this land and buildings. Historically registration of land and rights to the land was carried out in two forms: in the form of a land cadastre and Land Registry. Land cadastre has traditionally been maintained by the state administration bodies and served at the beginning as the base for calculating taxes. Cadastre data specified not only the boundaries of the real estate but also the type of land, and in the case of agricultural and forest land - the quality class as well as data pertaining to the owner or holder of the real estate.

Land Registry maintained by courts have also been a traditional land register. Land Registry as official registers are used for the registration of the right to the property and others rights related to real estate as well as any easements upon them. The major function of Land Registry is to create a reliable legal basis guaranteeing the certainty of trade in real estate and a reliable basis for contracting long-term mortgage credit.

2. Land cadastre development in Poland

A legal and factual situation of the land cadastre on the Polish territories after Poland regained independence in 1918 varied. Land cadastre was maintained only on the territory that had formerly been under Prussian and Austrian partition, whereas on the territory of the former Russian partition, in rural areas, there had been no cadastre at all. These territories were characterised by a very bad agrarian structure, therefore state's efforts in the period between the two world wars were mainly concentrated on works connected with land consolidation and land reform.

Works that were begun in 1935 relating to the unification of land classification rules for the purposes of land tax were interrupted by World War II. After the World War II works on establishing land cadastre of a common character were begun as late as in 1955, following the period of land reform and land management in western and northern Poland. Between 1956 and 1970 land cadastre was established in Poland. This cadastre is based on four fundamental principles: a) commonness, b) uniformity, c) completeness and d) reliability.

a) The principle of commonness consists in the fact that all land and buildings in Poland are covered by this cadastre. Land is identified according to its location, boundaries, area, type of land and soil classification, symbol in Land Registry or sets of records, provided they have been maintained for the real estate, part of which is land. For the cadastre purposes the following types of land may be distinguished:

land used for agricultural purposes, called agricultural land,
land under forest and tree plantings,
underwater land,
land used for mineral mining purposes (mining land),
land used for transport purposes,
built-up area or area intended for building,
land used in any other way,
land not used, unsuitable for agricultural production (idle land).

Agricultural land is divided into:

arable land,
orchards,
permanent meadows
permanent pastures

Land classification is maintained on the basis of soil classification. Thus, there are nine classes of arable land (I, II, IIIa, IIIb, IVa,IVb, V, VI, VIZ) and six classes of green land, i.e. permanent meadows and pastures (I, II, III, IV, V, VI).

Building have so far been identified according to their location, intended use, functions and general technical data. In the land cadastre the owner is listed, and as regards state-owned and municipal land - other natural and legal persons who are the users of the land and buildings or part of them, also the place of their residence or registered seat is indicated. According to the regulations in force, information concerning the entry of land or buildings in the register of monuments is provided in the land cadastre.

b) The uniformity of the land cadastre means that it is maintained according to the same rules and principles for all types of land.

c) The completeness of the cadastre is manifest in the fact that besides revealing major data on land and buildings all people whose land and buildings are entered in the cadastre are obliged to provide information to the regional authorities of the government administration about any changes that are covered by the cadastre. This obligation rests also with the courts and notary offices, which are by law required to send to the authority maintaining register copies of legally binding rulings and notary acts within 30 days from the date of becoming final and valid.

d) The reliability of the cadastre means that data relating to land and buildings are the only complete source of information. Data relating to the description of land (location, boundaries, type and class of land) are binding for the citizens and state or municipal administration authorities alike. In case of discrepancy between these data and those entered in the Land Registry, all entries in the Land Registry should be corrected on the basis of the data from the land cadastre. However, as regards data relating to the owner, they are not subject to the presumption of truthfulness to the same extent as the entries in Land Registry as the land cadastre is not characterised by the principle of reliability.

Data contained in the land cadastre are the basic source of information for: physical planning, calculation of taxes and public and private payments, assigning the symbol to the real estate in Land Registry, public statistics, land management. As regards trade in real estate, they ensure the protection of property interests of the parties.

The setting up of the land cadastre in Poland was financed from the state budget funds. Simultaneously technical works (measurement) as well as legal and organisational ones were carried out by state-owned firms organised as state-owned enterprises or the so called budgetary entities.

3. Private sector in the cadastre system

Following 1989 representatives of the private sector have been more often involved in works connected with modernisation (updating) of techniques of setting up and maintaining land cadastre. These are the entities engaged in land-surveying works organised as limited liability companies, partnerships, private offices, etc. They are dynamic, they contribute modern technologies and are serious competitors within the system of public procurement for the large public sector, which still performs most of the works in this field. The very institution of the land cadastre is currently developing rapidly. The scope of its works (pertaining to data on real estate) has significantly expanded recently. (A relevant regulation entered into force in 1997). At the same time the rapid development of information techniques has created a possibility of establishing, based on the so far Poland's as well as other countries' experience, a modern land information system (LIS) while making use of the land cadastre experience.