Posted December 2000

Final report

Bertinoro III
International Land Tenure School and High-Level Technical Seminar

Chapter 4: Experiences from Southeastern Europe

4.1 Analysis of some major land property issues in the Republic of Bulgaria

Evloguiev I. Mladenov

The status of land reform and restitution

Land reform and restitution of property in the Republic of Bulgaria have proved to be slow and complex processes because of difficulties with legislation, the change of 7 governments, and the introduction of 25 amendments to the Land Restitution and Agricultural Land Use Law. The Government has nearly completed these important processes.

Statistical data for the entire country show that as of 30 September 1999 land property rights had been restored to existing or restorable original boundaries or through land division plans for 53,310,000 dca. This figure represents 94.57% of the 56,370,000 dca of land specified for restitution. Restitution statistics are as follows:

· 14,077,000 dca (24.97%) are restored to existing or restorable original real boundaries

· 39,233,000 dca (69.60%) are restored through land division plans.

Land property rights were restored regarding 1,004,000 dca of agricultural land during September 1999 compared with 11,031,000 dca during January - August 1999.

Some 2,187,223 decisions of Land Commissions have entered into force. These are accompanied by drafts which, according to the Land Restitution and Agricultural Land Use Law, have the purpose of ascertaining notarial deeds. These decisions concern 48,065,542 dca, representing 90.16% of restored land.

There are 3,183 Agricultural Cooperatives established under the Cooperatives Law and registered in Court. They cultivate 22,884,000 dca of lands.

Compensation under the Land Restitution and Agricultural Land Use Law

The amount of compensation due for the 3.5 million dca of agricultural lands is approximately 1.3 billion leva. The Land Restitution and Agricultural Land Use Law specifies clearly when compensation is to be provided only through nominal compensation bonds and when people can choose the way in which they wish to be compensated (with land or through nominal compensation bonds). The various possibilities are:

· Compensation through nominal compensation bonds and land from state or municipal land funds for settlers of Aegean Thracia whose lands were used to pay off state debts in accordance with the Agreement of 1964 between the Republic of Bulgaria and the Greece Royalty. This option is also available to Bulgarian citizens in Southern Dobrudja who lost land to Romania.

· Compensation to landowners only through nominal compensation bonds for lands over the 200 or 300 dca restored.

· Compensation with lands only from the municipal land fund and/or through nominal compensation bonds to landowners whose lands were destroyed and could not be restored because of reasons specified in the Land Restitution and Agricultural Land Use Law.

Of the above-mentioned 3.5 million dca, citizens have requested compensation in the form of about 800,000 dca having a value of 300 million leva. Citizens will be compensated through nominal compensation bonds, equal to 1 billion leva, for the remaining 2,700,000 dca. It is anticipated that the nominal compensation bonds will be distributed as follows:

· About 600 million leva for purchasing lands from the State Land Fund through tenders

· About 200 million leva for acquiring ownership of lands and Agricultural Cooperative Farm farmyards that have been liquidated

· About 200 million leva for participation in privatization

Free arable lands from the State Land Fund total 960,000 dca. About 500,000 dca of these lands are expected to be put up for sale by tender through nominal compensation bonds and the remaining 460,000 dca will be used for:

· land settlement of landless citizens (250,000 dca)

· carrying out structural and sector policy in agriculture (210,000 dca)

The value of land secured with nominal compensation bonds from the State Land Fund is 190 million leva, i. e., the average sale price of one dca will be about 3 times higher than the initial tender price.

According to the provisions of the Land Restitution and Agricultural Land Use Law, nominal compensation bonds can be used for:

· Purchase of agricultural land from the State Land Fund by tenders

· Acquisition of ownership of lands and of farmyards of the Agricultural Cooperative Farm and other similar organizations that have been already liquidated

· Participation in privatization

· Free transfers

· Acquisition of ownership of forests and lands of the Forest Fund

The opportunity to transfer nominal compensation bonds is expected to result in a decrease in the number of bond-holders and an increase in the value of bonds held by individuals. This will enhance the target-oriented and effective use of nominal compensation bonds in four different fields of their application as regulated in the Land Restitution and Agricultural Land Use Law.

An active market is envisaged for the nominal compensation bonds and, if these expectations materialise, their selling price will be relatively high, especially when used as payment of privatised assets in the field of agriculture.

Concerning compensations, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Agrarian Reform (MAFAR) has undertaken the following measures:

· Orders have been issued by the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Agrarian Reform. These orders define the compensation due to Bulgarian citizens or their heirs for the loss of lands used to pay off the State debt in accordance with the 1964 Agreement for resolving financial issues and developing economic cooperation between Bulgaria and Greece.

· Two million certificates for nominal compensation bonds have been issued by the Ministry of Finances. These certificates are protected from forgery.

· New regulations have been prepared to address recent changes in the Land Restitution and Agricultural Land Use Law and have been coordinated with the institutions concerned. The regulations include amendments and supplements to the existing regulations on issuing and receiving nominal compensation bonds and on making transfers and payments through such bonds.

· Land commissions shall be provided with software programs for:

¬ Determination of the amount and value of compensations due. The value is determined according to the Regulation concerning the provisions for establishing current market prices of agricultural land. The value is based on the average price of a dca by categories of agricultural lands in community lands. This approach excludes subjectivism in preparing valuations.

¬ Preparation of certificates for nominal compensation bonds.

¬ Registration and control system to be used for the certificates issued. This software as well as that for preparing certificates for nominal compensation bonds, were submitted to the Land Commissions on 11 October 1999.

A regulation concerning tenders for the sale of lands of the State Land Fund using nominal compensation bonds has been prepared and is awaiting approval by the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Agrarian Reform. It is envisaged that tenders will be held successively at municipal, regional and national levels. Holders of nominal compensation bonds, whose certificates are issued by a Land Commission in the framework of a same municipality and region, will be able to participate in municipal and regional tenders for estates announced by the State Land Fund. The proposed measures will allow compensation to be paid in municipalities and regions where lands are not restituted.

Every holder of compensation bonds can participate in the national tender regardless of where the lands to be compensated are located.

A deadline of 30 November 1999 was set for the MAFAR to define, by region, what lands of the State Land Fund would be involved in the tenders. Depending on the readiness of the land commissions, initial tenders could be held at the beginning of the year 2000 in different municipalities of the Dobrich, Razgrad and Silistra regions. The compensation process stipulated in the Land Restitution and Agricultural Land Use Law will be concluded in mid-2000.

The restitution of forest property and the Forest Fund land rights

Property rights regarding forests and Forest Fund lands that were taken from their owners are being restituted to Bulgarian physical and legal persons or to their heirs. These rights are being restituted according to the location, surface area and boundaries current at the time of their taking only if the parcel boundaries were existing or restorable when the law entered into force. When the original boundaries cannot be determined, lands are restituted with forests of the same size and in the same community and/or in a neighbouring area using the State Forest Fund.

The forest fund lands of the Republic of Bulgaria total 38,775,000 dca. Physical and legal persons have submitted claims for almost 6,000,000 dca. A similar surface area is to be restored for municipal forests.

Nearly 1,500,000 dca of private forests, which were destroyed through no fault of their owners, are allowed to be restituted without being subject to ownership documentation. Claims regarding such forests are to be proved before special commissions formed by virtue of an Order of the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Agrarian Reform. The Law allows lands to be restituted after owners have proved their claims for property rights.

Land Commissions have already received and considered all property requests supported by documentation. At present, they are receiving requests for restitution of property rights of forests and forest fund lands not subject to ownership documentation.

Ten pilot projects are being prepared with a view to identifying the precise methodology, technical issues, instructions and stages of restitution of forest property. Rules for the methods of holding tenders, pricing and establishing forest divisions by territories are being developed. Contracts with licensed companies for forest division works will be entered into until the end of 1999. This is one reason why the process for final restitution of forest property is expected to last until the end of the year 2000. A part of the property restitution, accompanied by a draft and a paper for accession to an estate, will be implemented in the beginning of 2001.

Private property is sacred and inviolable

The first stage of the Land Reform concludes with the restitution of agricultural lands.

At present, controversial issues include the creation of landowners who are to assume the responsibility of managing and holding lands within a market-oriented environment. Land restitution by documents is a legal and technical act that entitles landowners or their heirs to decide how to best manage and cultivate the land in accordance with their own requirements. They are free to decide whether to cultivate the land directly; to lease it to cooperatives, associations or individual leaseholders; or to sell or exchange it. For the sake of security, landowners should enter into written contracts with leaseholders (cooperatives, associations or individuals). Such contracts should specify leasing arrangements including rental income, etc.

During the past two years, a number of laws for private property protection and support for agricultural producers were passed in Parliament and implemented by the Government.

The main objective of recent changes to the Land Restitution and Agricultural Land Use Law is to accelerate the restitution of property rights and to facilitate the development of an agricultural land market.

A Land Commission's Decision for property restitution, accompanied by a draft of an estate, has the same validity as an ascertainment by notarial deed. Agricultural landowners who acquire land are exempted from paying state and local taxes for a period of 5 years to foster land market development.

The changes and supplements to the Lease Law on Agriculture have led Bulgarian agriculture to be market-oriented. Constraints concerning the maximum size of leased land parcels as well as maximum lease-contract delays have been revoked. Contractual rights and obligations of lenders and leaseholders are clearer and more feasible.

The Law on Cooperatives was passed in Parliament and amendments and supplements were approved. Radical changes were made in the statutes of cooperatives regarding the rights and obligations of their members, thus providing greater protection to agricultural landowners. The major change is that agricultural land cannot serve as an in-kind instalment. A landowner who leases land to a cooperative for use and cultivation must receive payment in money and/or agricultural products. Property of the cooperative should not include real rights upon agricultural land and such rights will not be set up in favour of the cooperative.

Landowners who cultivate their land on their own receive fiscal facilities and mechanisms for financial support. The Agricultural Producers Law exempts them from VAT and Profit Tax. The State Agriculture Fund provides a number of preferential credit lines for financial support to foster the production of miscellaneous agricultural crops and the purchase of agricultural technology, highly productive animals, etc.

At present infringements do occur on community lands where restitution has been completed. Boundary markers of fields and estates have been destroyed and rural estates are being used illegally by legal or physical persons without the agreement of landowners. In these cases the rights of landowners are not always protected. Interdepartmental Commissions were established to monitor and control the land reform in every municipality in order to reduce and eliminate these infringements. The Commissions will inspect these cases and will prosecute those responsible for infringements.

The sooner the people realise that they are the legal private owners of the restored land, with rights to hold it, to manage it, and to derive profits from it, the sooner they will establish the effective agricultural structures needed to lead the revival of agriculture in Bulgaria.

The Land Consolidation Law is being prepared and its discussion and adoption by the Parliament is forthcoming.

Information system for land market support

With the conclusion of the land restitution process, preconditions for land markets are established. A real land market does not yet exist although some transactions have been made between Bulgarian citizens. In many cases buyers are the leaseholders who cultivate the land. They purchase the land from the owners in order to add it to the land they already have under cultivation. This is a practical way of land consolidation. Land leasing also takes place and forms part of the land market.

One of the main reasons for the underdeveloped land market is the lack of financial resources of people involved with agriculture. Other reasons include the lack of security and stability in the agricultural production and trade process. There is also a lack of information about the supply and demand of agricultural land, including information about the different types of land and how to obtain them. For this purpose the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Agrarian Reform is creating an information system to support land markets. The information system will contain a large database on the supply and demand of land in order to help land market agents. The information system will enable Land Commissions to exchange computer-based information and current land maps, thus making the land market clearer and more transparent.

The adoption of the Cadastre and Registration Law is of great importance for Bulgaria. The major problems that have to be resolved regarding this Law are the legal controversies between the Cadastre and the Property Register, the legal consequences of registration, and the role of surveyors in the private sector.

4.2 Land reform in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and beyond

David Harris

Introduction

The purpose of this paper is two-fold:

· To describe the process of land reform in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia

· To define lessons and guidelines for land reform projects based on the author's experience in Central and Eastern Europe during the past 5 years

Background and history

The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia is a landlocked country about 25,000 square kilometres in area with a population of about 2,000,000. It gained its independence from Yugoslavia in November 1991. It has common borders with Greece, Albania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia.

For centuries Macedonia was part of the Ottoman Empire, this rule only ending in the Balkan wars of 1912-13. After the 1st World War, Macedonia was part of the "Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes", which was renamed Yugoslavia in 1929. After the 2nd World War, Yugoslavia became the "Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" with Macedonia being one of the 6 constituent Republics in the Federation.

During Ottoman times, land ownership rights were recorded on documents known as Tapia. These were effectively certificates of title, and still exist today. A form of Tapia was also used from 1931, under a Yugoslav law that is still in force. In parts of the country Tapia are still created and used as essential formal evidence of ownership rights. Official records of Tapia are recorded in books in the basic courts. Also recorded in the courts are records of mortgages in Intabulation books. The weaknesses of these two sets of records are that they are difficult to search conclusively and that they are not always up to date.

There also exists a cadastre (dating from the 1930s) which is essentially a record of property boundaries and possession although this record has a role today in defining de facto ownership in some parts of the country. This "old" cadastre is often out of date, although the textual records are computerised.

The 1990s: time to reform

The FYR Macedonia declared independence from Yugoslavia in November 1991. Like other countries in Eastern and Central Europe at the same time, the challenges it faced were to make the transition from a centrally planned and controlled economy to a democratic market economy. However, due to geographical and political reasons, reforms in FYR Macedonia have been very slow. The European Union's Phare programme only began work in the country in 1996, with the first projects starting in 1997 (including one to help implement land reform).

With regard to land ownership, FYR Macedonia differs from many other former communist countries. While all urban land is state owned, only 20% of arable land is state owned. Of this arable land, much was reclaimed land (e.g., marshland turned into arable land) rather than nationalised land. However, the formal state records of ownership are not as comprehensive or as well ordered as in those countries further north which benefited from the introduction of the Germanic-Austrian system of Grundbuch (Landbook) for recording land ownership rights.

In 1986 a Law on Survey, Cadastre and Registration of Real Estate Rights was enacted. This law was designed to replace the existing Cadastre, and to create a new, unique countrywide record of ownership rights, land parcels and buildings. In effect it replaces the whole range of existing records of rights (Tapía, Cadastre, Intabulation books) described earlier. However, the Law was not implemented until the early 1990s. Since then, progress on a systematic survey and adjudication of properties and associated rights has been very slow. This is due to the large amounts of data being collected (survey data in particular) and the inherent problems associated with registering rights (e.g. lack of documentary evidence, lack of claims, the need to treat each claim individually).

This is the situation that faces a country urgently needing to implement reforms to land ownership and registration, so that the development of the economy is supported through dealing and investment in real estate.

The main problems can be summarised as:

· All urban land is still in state ownership

· An inadequate legal basis for a land market

· No legislation to allow sporadic registration of real estate rights

· Incomplete and inadequate records of legal rights in real estate

· Long and bureaucratic procedures for mortgage foreclosure

· Lack of cooperation between regional cadastre offices and basic courts

· Slow systematic registration of real estate rights

· No organisation with a remit to coordinate registration of real estate rights

· Lack of a clear plan of action to resolve these issues as a whole

PHARE Land Reform Projects in FYR Macedonia

PHARE Phase 1

The first EU Phare land reform project in FYR Macedonia started in December 1997. The contract was won by the Ordnance Survey of Great Britain in association with the Royal Agricultural College (UK) and Registers of Scotland (the Scottish Land Registry). The overall objective of the project as stated in the Terms of Reference was:

"The creation of appropriate legal and institutional arrangements for the development of land and real estate markets which:

· Is property based (and not an owner's based deeds registration system)

· Unifies title registration with cadastral mapping

· Unifies all properties into a single registration system

· Registration by the state is guaranteed

· Establishes de-centralised registration offices

The contractors have carried out a full and thorough assessment of the current situation with respect to land ownership and associated issues, and made detailed recommendations and proposals for change to meet the demands of a market economy with a free market in land.

The issues examined were:

· Legislation. Existing legislation relating to real estate was reviewed and recommendations made for change. Advice has been given on the drafting of new and revised laws, some of which have been enacted; other draft laws are awaiting allocation of Government and Parliamentary time.

· Land registration. The current situation was critically reviewed and detailed proposals made for reform, including changes to legislation, institutional responsibilities and detailed procedures for registering rights. A study tour of 3 west European countries (England, Austria and Netherlands) was made to compare different arrangements for registering rights.

· De-nationalisation of land. The fundamental importance and urgency of denationalising state-owned land was stressed and advice given about the design of procedures for implementing denationalisation.

· IT systems. Existing systems were assessed and detailed proposals made for upgrading to support the changes proposed for registration of rights. The concept of private sector involvement was introduced, for example in carrying out the conversion of existing manual records into digital form.

· Mortgages. The importance of mortgages for financing investment was explained. Advice was given for improving existing legislation about mortgage foreclosure and registration of mortgages.

· Real estate valuation. The requirements for valuation skills in the public and private sectors were assessed. Training was done in Skopje and the United Kingdom to introduce market valuation skills to the country and set them in the context of a functioning land market.

· Physical planning. Existing laws and the implementation of procedures for planning were examined, including the introduction of private sector companies into the planning process.

The plan is that a pilot project to implement the proposed reforms will commence next year. This work should include a pilot registration system in a regional office of the Republic Geodetic Institute (RGU) incorporating important links to the basic court and notaries. Fundamental to the success of such a project will be the enactment of new legislation relating to denationalisation of land and improved registration procedures. In particular sporadic registration of property rights will be introduced.

Common problems in the design of land reform projects

The following are based on the author's experience of land reform projects in a number of central and east European countries, as a consultant or as a visitor.

· An over emphasis on technical and IT issues. Information technology provides important and powerful tools to record, edit, analyse, combine and distribute both textual and graphical data. However, IT is a set of tools, not the final result. The end result (in the context of land market development in Eastern Europe) must be to contribute to land market development, not to exploit the latest technology per se.

· Ignoring "soft" issues, e.g. management, publicity and training. A problem related to that preceding is the tendency to ignore the management and training issues required to successfully implement and maintain improved IT systems. These can be likened to the oil that lubricates an engine.

· An over-emphasis on survey and mapping. Cadastral maps are one element of a cadastral system, helping to describe properties and their associated boundaries. However, the cost of initial survey and update is usually a relatively high proportion of the total cost of registration. Attempts to reduce the cost by relaxing accuracy requirements and making more use of existing mapping are not always given the attention they deserve.

· A failure to focus on the overall objective of developing the land market. Projects ostensibly designed to develop the land market are often focussed on the improvement of the land registration system. This is a laudable aim, but does sometimes result in a blinkered approach in trying to develop an over specified registration system, which burdens rather than enables land market development.

· Failure to address or resolve institutional issues. Any system of land registration will require a clear definition of responsibilities between organisations (public and private sectors) and the cooperation and exchange of information between those organisations. Within the context of Central and Eastern Europe, this often requires changes to existing responsibilities. The best technical system in the world will not produce useful results if the institutional issues are not resolved.

Lessons to learn

The following are some of the factors that will influence the success of land reform projects.

· Government support at the highest level. This is particularly important where the project is dealing with policy and legislative issues, or aiming to implement institutional changes. The Government support should be reflected in high level chairing of the project steering committee, and regular briefing information should be produced specifically for the Government.

· Good counterpart staff so that transfer of skills can take place. These counterparts should include senior officials with commitment (i.e. sufficient time to devote to the project) and vision. High level Government supports on its own is not sufficient for success.

· Set long term objectives with short/medium term milestones. The latter have to be ambitious yet achievable and must be prioritised. One of the major weaknesses of many projects is trying to do too much in too short a time. Implementing change is never easy; too much change will cause confusion.

· Provide a combination of Technical Assistance / training / equipment. All of these elements are important for successful land reform projects.

· Develop people's vision of the wider issues. Projects should focus on key needs of the economy. In the case of land reform this should be aimed at developing conditions for a land market to thrive. Efficient land registration systems and cadastres are not ends in themselves. There is enormous benefit to a country's economy if the economic potential of real estate is released, for example by enabling mortgages to be easily obtained. Secure land rights are a pre-requisite for this.

The private sector

Land reform in transition economies is, not surprisingly, managed and implemented largely by the public sector. In general the private sector has not had a major role to play (although there are exceptions). One reason for this is that a private sector with the necessary skills does not exist, but also it has not been encouraged.

Areas where the private sector could potentially be used are:

· Cadastral surveys

· Real estate valuation

· Conversion of manual records to digital form

However, in order to introduce private sector activities successfully, a number of factors need be considered:

· The use of the private sector needs to be managed by the public sector, which will require resources (i.e. people and equipment).

· The public sector must set clear specifications for the private sector to work to; the public sector will need to work closely with contractors to develop clear and workable specifications.

· The public sector must carry out effective quality control of private sector work (sufficient resources must be allocated for this, probably about 10% of contract value, but initially this figure will be higher).

· Private sector activities should be introduced gradually; both the public and private sectors need to build up experience of this way of working.

· There must be fair and open competition for contracts so that the benefits of competition are gained.

4.3 Public and private sector cooperation in developing the Hellenic National Cadastre

Panos Lolonis

Abstract

This paper describes the cooperation between the public and private sectors in Greece for the development of the Hellenic Cadastre. Specifically, the paper outlines the basic principles that guide the development and operation of the cadastre, describes the procedure that is followed to collect and validate the data, presents the major public and private sector agencies that are involved in the development process, analyses the functional interrelationships among those agencies, describes the main fields within which the cooperation takes place, and elaborates on the characteristics of the cooperation. In addition, it discusses the difficulties that are encountered in the establishment of the cooperation and presents the conclusions.

Introduction

The aim of this paper is to describe the interaction between private and public sector agencies involved in the development of the Hellenic Cadastre. The necessity of such cooperation is dictated by the multidisciplinary nature and scale of the task, the influences of the legislative and institutional environment, the significant number and power of affected stakeholders, and the tight time limits within which the development must take place. This cooperation started at the beginning of the Hellenic Cadastre Project and has gone through various phases and changes.

The development of the Hellenic Cadastre started in 1994 when the Greek Government incorporated it into the 2^nd Community Support Framework (Delors Package II). The development of such a system was advocated by the fact that the existing deeds registration system, called "The Registry and Mortgages System", has certain deficiencies that do not allow for efficient and effective land management. Indeed, the existing system does not guarantee ownership rights on land, does not facilitate identifying owners of a particular land parcel, and does not allow for an easy and inexpensive determination of land ownership data. All these deficiencies have resulted in disputes over land ownership, encroachment on public land, reduced utilisation of land, and increased transaction costs.

The development of the Hellenic Cadastre relies greatly on close collaboration between public and private sector agencies: the public sector controls the procedures for registration and maintenance of land property rights while the private sector has the means and mechanisms to complete the task efficiently and effectively. In addition, the European Union, the major financial sponsor of the initial phase of the Project, strongly advocates the use of private sector resources in the development of the Hellenic Cadastre. The above legislative, organizational, institutional, and business establishment defines a system within which the Hellenic Cadastre Project must be developed and creates a complex and delicate environment within which the various involved agencies must function. In this paper, we describe this system and analyse both how these agencies operate and how they interact with each other in the development process.

This paper is structured into five sections. The first section describes the Hellenic Cadastre including its goals, operational characteristics and development. The second presents the major private and public sector agencies involved in its development and operation. The third describes the domains of collaboration between the public and private sector agencies within the Hellenic Cadastre development process. The fourth discusses the difficulties encountered in the collaboration between the agencies. Finally, the last section presents the conclusions and summarises future prospects.

The Hellenic Cadastre

The Hellenic Cadastre is governed by two laws: Law 2308/95, which specifies the procedure by which the cadastral data are collected and validated (Hellenic Republic, 1995a), and Law 2664/98, which specifies the operation of the cadastre (Hellenic Republic, 1998). Both laws have been formulated and enacted following the decision of the Greek government to incorporate the development of the cadastre into the 2^nd Community Support Framework.

The six principles that form the basis of the Hellenic Cadastre (Hellenic Republic, 1998, article 2) are:

1. Cadastral data shall be organized on a parcel basis. This means that each legal land parcel is characterized by a unique identifier and is depicted on the cadastral diagrams.

2. The legality of the requested transactions shall be checked. Each transaction, before being registered in the system, is checked to ensure that its legal prerequisites are met (the submitted titles and the other supporting documents are legally appropriate and sufficient).

3. The chronological order of the transactions to be processed shall be maintained.

4. Public access to the contents of the cadastral books shall be provided.

5. Public trust regarding the cadastral data shall be assured. This means that individuals who make transactions based on the cadastral data are insured against any losses due to data deficiencies or errors.

6. The Cadastre shall be "expandable". This means that, in the future, the Hellenic Cadastre may incorporate additional data other than those specified in Law 2664/98.

The main rights that are registered in the cadastral system concern: ownership, usufruct, habitation, mortgage, servitude, seizure, long-term leasing, time-share leasing, leasing, and mining. These rights are created, transferred or terminated through the transactions specified in the same Law 2664/98 (Hellenic Republic, 1998, article 12).

Data are collected and validated through a procedure specified in Law 2308/95 (Hellenic Republic, 1995a) and in the technical specifications of the cadastral survey studies (Hellenic Republic, 1995b). The main steps of the procedure are:

1. Select the municipalities to be surveyed in a particular time-period. These municipalities are then grouped into "study areas", each of which will be surveyed independently.

2. Contract the cadastral survey work of each study area to contractors who are to carry out the surveys, collect the relevant data, and build the initial database on the land property rights.

3. Make the topographic base map of each area. This map is made using primarily photogrammetric methods. The scale is 1:1000 for urban areas and 1:5000 for rural areas.

4. Make maps that depict the forest areas.

5. Delineate the areas specified by legislation as public areas (e.g. seashores and coastal zones).

6. Invite persons who have land property rights in each study area to submit the pertinent declarations.

7. Collect the declarations and the accompanying documents (photocopies of deeds, certificates of deed registrations, topographic diagrams etc) and process them to determine the nature and validity of the rights.

8. Make the preliminary cadastral diagrams depicting the land parcels and the buildings.

9. Make the preliminary cadastral tables describing the declared rights on the land parcels depicted on the preliminary cadastral diagrams.

10. "Suspend" the preliminary cadastral diagrams and tables at the cadastral offices and other appropriate locations ("1^st Suspension"). In addition, notify declarers by mail about the property rights that have been recorded under their name in the cadastral records and inform them about their right to raise objections in case of disagreement about the data recorded.

11. Collect and examine the objections. The examination is made by 3-member committees, each of which consists of two lawyers and one engineer.

12. Update the preliminary cadastral data according to the recommendations of the Objection Committees.

13. "Display" the updated cadastral diagrams and tables and notify the persons concerned by mail about the new status of the recorded data ("2^nd Display"). In addition, inform those persons about their right to submit appeals.

14. Collect and examine the appeals. The appeals are examined by a 2^nd-degree committee consisting of 2 lawyers and 1 engineer who have more experience on Property Law than the corresponding members of the Objection Committees.

15. Update the cadastral data by taking into consideration the recommendations of the Appeal Committees.

16. Record the "first registrations" in the cadastral books and build the initial state of the cadastral database using the data contained in the updated cadastral diagrams and tables.

After recording the "first registrations" and building the corresponding databases for a particular area, the cadastral system starts operating and the mandates of Law 2664/98 regarding its contents and operations become effective. This system will be computer-based, although the Law specifies that the cadastral data and transactions will also be recorded in the cadastral books.

It should be noted that for a period of five years after the recording of the "first registrations", the correctness of the "first registrations" can be challenged in court. After that time period, however, the unchallenged "first registrations" become "permanent", and only in certain circumstances they may be court "challenged". Individuals who make transactions based on "permanent" registrations are assured that the rights resulting from those transactions are guaranteed by the Hellenic State.

The procedure for collecting cadastral data lasts approximately 3-4 years from the date in which the data collection contracts (Step 2 above) are signed. Given that there is an additional period of 5-7 years for the "first registrations" to become "permanent", it is deduced that the total period for finalizing the "first registrations" is approximately 8-11 years. This period is considered to be long enough to bring forward the actual landowners and reduce erroneous individual land allotments.

The Hellenic Cadastre is developed through a sequence of Cadastral Survey Programs, each of which is launched at a different time point. Each program consists of a group of cadastral survey projects (called cadastral studies) and each study covers on average four municipalities and an area of approximately 100 sq. km. The 1^st Program ("Pilot A' Program") was launched in December 1995 and includes 66 municipalities covering an area of 2,235 sq. km. Since then, one more program has been launched and two are under way (Table 1).

Development of the Hellenic Cadastre Project takes place in a geographically dispersed fashion (Figure 1). Specifically, the areas included in the 1^st Program have been strategically selected to provide a representative picture of the size and difficulty of the cadastral survey work involved. The programs that followed included areas that were adjacent to the previously selected "core" areas and contained major urban centres that experienced increased "pressure" for development. The selection of areas was conducted in such way that the ratio of allocating funds to urban, rural, and environmentally sensitive areas was preserved and each prefecture had at least one cadastral survey study in progress (a geographically balanced distribution of funds).

The time horizon for completing the development of the Hellenic Cadastre is approximately 15-20 years. However, in the areas that have been included in the program in the early stages, the cadastre would be operational much earlier.

The total cost for developing the Hellenic Cadastre is estimated to be in the order of US$ 1 billion. Currently, the funds for the cadastral surveys are drawn from the 2^nd Support Framework of the European Union (75%) and from the Program of Public Investment of the Greek State (25%). In the future, funds for cadastral projects would come from the 3^rd Community Support Framework, the Greek State, the cadastral transaction fees, and the sale of products. It is envisioned that, at later stages of the development, the cadastral system would be able to self-finance its operation.

Figure 1: Cadastral Survey Areas

Major private and public sector bodies involved in developing the Hellenic Cadastre

The development of the Hellenic Cadastre causes a major disturbance in the way that land administration functions in Greece. In addition, it affects a large number of individuals residing in Greece or abroad and influences a significant number of institutions and associations that have land interests (Table 2). Each step in the development requires caution, alertness, and insight in order to avoid the obstacles raised by the conflicting interests of the affected parties. So far, the Project has progressed without any major setbacks because the most powerful bodies that could affect it (the European Union, the Greek Government, the political parties, and the professional associations) strongly support its development.

The most complex and delicate issues to be resolved included the rivalry between the public and private sector agencies concerning the role that each would play in the development and operation of the cadastre. The public sector, on the one hand, had the constitutional and legislative mandate to deal with land administration issues but, according to some parties involved in the decision-making process, lacked the means and mechanisms to carry-out the Project timely, efficiently, and effectively. The private sector, on the other hand, and particularly the surveying engineering industry, was pressing hard for a fast move forward, particularly in view of the availability of funds which had been allocated to the Hellenic Cadastre Project by the European Union and the Greek Government, and which remained unutilized. However, the Greek legislation mandates that the protection of land property rights is the responsibility of the State and cannot be delegated to the private sector.

The strategy adopted for proceeding with the relevant responsibilities involved the following major decisions/actions:

1. The Hellenic Mapping and Cadastral Organization (HEMCO), which is a public sector organization under the supervision of the Minister of Environment, Physical Planning and Public Works and which is supported by the Hellenic Cadastral and Mapping Service (HECMS) (Table 2), was given the jurisdiction to develop and operate the cadastre.

2. The cadastral offices would be supervised by HEMCO. Once such a cadastral office is established in an area, there will be a transfer of functions from the corresponding registry office to the cadastral office. At present, the registry offices are under the supervision of the Ministry of Justice while the cadastral offices are under the supervision of the Ministry of Environment, Physical Planning and Public Works. The establishment of a new cadastral office in an area would thus result, among other things, in a transfer of functions and jurisdictions from one ministry to another.

3. The Ministry of Environment, Physical Planning and Public Works established a new company, called "Ktimatologio S.A." in order to plan and carry out, in close cooperation with HEMCO, the development of the Hellenic Cadastre. This company is solely owned by the Greek State, is supervised by the Minister of Environment, Physical Planning and Public Works, and operates according to the rules and regulations that apply to private sector companies. In this manner it was considered that the effectiveness and flexibility that characterize private sector companies would be realized in the development of the Hellenic Cadastre without violation of the existing legislation. To ensure that there would be an open channel of communication between HEMCO and Ktimatologio, certain members of the Board of Directors of Ktimatologio also serve on the Board of Directors of HEMCO.

4. Ktimatologio has hired the Hellenic Cadastre Consult S.A. (HCC) to get managerial assistance in planning and carrying out the Hellenic Cadastre Project (Table 2). HCC is a joint venture between an Australian company that specializes in land administration, a Danish company that specializes in project management, and a Greek company that specializes in project management consulting. So far, HCC has assisted in: developing the organizational chart of Ktimatologio; preparing the plan for incorporating new areas in the cadastral program; estimating the total cost of the project; refining the technical specifications; specifying the strategy for developing the Information Technology (IT) system of the Hellenic Cadastre; supervising the on-going cadastral survey studies; developing a plan for establishing cadastral offices; and establishing quality control and quality assurance procedures in Ktimatologio. The above tasks are carried out by HCC personnel, employed in certain key positions in the Ktimatologio organizational chart. Such positions include the Project Director, who reports to the General Manager, and the directors of the Departments of Planning and Programming, Contract Supervision, and Information Technology.

5. Ktimatologio carries out tasks that are related to planning, designing, and project supervision and outsources tasks that require work at a production rate (e.g., collection of cadastral data, aerial photography, and public promotion). The outsourcing of projects to private sector companies is made in accordance to EU directives. So far, 93 cadastral survey contracts, covering a total area of 8,439 sq. km and with a total budget of approximately US$100 million have been contracted to private sector companies. The supervision of these contracts constitutes the dominant activity of Ktimatologio. Other programs are still at a planning and tendering stage (Table 1).

Interrelationships between private and public sector agencies

The major public and private sector agencies that are involved in the development of the Hellenic Cadastre (Table 2) are interrelated in a complex, multi-facet, and often bi-directional manner. Generally, EU and the Greek government specify the policies, the framework, and the budgets necessary for development of the Project. Ktimatologio, in cooperation with HEMCO and HECMS, provides the planning and supervision of the tasks to be carried out. The private sector companies (engineering, aerial photography, information technology, and marketing communications) perform the tasks contracted to them by Ktimatologio or HEMCO¹. Finally, the associations provide input on technical matters or endeavour to promote the interests of their members. All these roles are discussed in greater detail in the following sections.

Development of the legislative infrastructure

One of the first challenges faced by the Hellenic Cadastre Project after its incorporation into the 2^nd Support Framework was the lack of a legislative framework to enable its development and operation. Given that the time constraints imposed by the EU for rapid progress were tight, it was decided that the development of the legislative infrastructure should take place in two stages. In the first stage, the procedure for collecting and establishing the validity of the initial cadastral data (up to the "first registrations") would be determined (Law 2308/95). The second stage would specify the operation of the cadastre (Law 2664/98). The agency that played the leading role in carrying out this task was HEMCO, supported by law experts specializing in Civil Law and Constitutional Law. In this process, the public sector (HEMCO, Registry Offices, Universities) carried out most of the work required for development of the legislative framework while the private sector provided input mainly through its professional associations (Technical Chamber, Geotechnical Chamber, Lawyers Association, Association of Registrars). (See Table 2.) The draft laws, after their preparation, were forwarded to the Parliament for refinement and approval. Eventually, they were passed in 1995 and 1998 respectively. The latter, in particular, won overwhelming support by almost all political parties in Greece, something unusual for political events in the country.

Collaboration in developing technical specifications and setting prices for cadastral surveys

This domain of collaboration between public and private sectors involves the development of technical specifications, the solution of technical problems, and the establishment of prices for the cadastral survey works. As far as technical specifications are concerned, the initiative and responsibility for their development belonged to HEMCO. Indeed, in the early stages of the Hellenic Cadastre Project, HEMCO formed a committee consisting of cadastral experts to develop the specifications. These specifications were forwarded to the Minister of Environment, Physical Planning and Public Works for approval.² Approximately 70% of the committee members came from the private sector (mainly surveying engineering) and 30% from HEMCO. Three senior university professors specialized in Surveying Engineering served as consultants to the committee which also received input from a number of public agencies and associations interested in the subject (HEMCO, 1994).

Since then, the specifications have been refined to incorporate technical details and have been expanded to cover other topics which had not formed part of the initial version (e.g., aerial photography). Most input, however, came through the involvement of the new personnel employed by Ktimatologio, including HCC personnel, and through feedback from the contractors who had been involved in the cadastral surveys of the 1^st Program. This procedure of continuous upgrading and improvement of the technical specifications through the collaboration of the involved agencies (public and private) is most likely to continue in the future.

The prices for performing cadastral survey works for the 1^st Program and for certain studies of the 2^nd Program were established through negotiations between HEMCO/Ktimatologio and the correspondent professional associations. For these studies, the decision about prices (as approved by the Minister of Environment, Physical Planning and Public Works) accompanied the technical specifications given to the contractors of cadastral survey works. For the remaining studies, however, the prices were determined through the bidding process of the open international tenders used to contract out the works.

Development of Ktimatologio organizational infrastructure

To develop its organizational infrastructure Ktimatologio used expertise and resources from both the private and public sectors. It hired the HCC to get assistance in developing its organizational structure, setting-up its operations as a private sector company, and defining the tasks that should be performed within the scope of its obligations. The intention was that HCC would provide the initial personnel until the company hired and trained its own staff. In addition, HCC would provide know-how about how such a company is managed efficiently and how a modern cadastral system is built and maintained. In this manner, international experience and well-established management practices would be transferred and incorporated into the newly established company. The agreement between the two agencies was signed in February 1997 and will expire in March 2000.³

Ktimatologio received support in establishing its infrastructure and in implementing its operations also from the public sector. HEMCO and HECMS personnel have been cooperating closely with Ktimatologio staff in the supervision of the cadastral survey studies of the 2^nd Program. Additional personnel from HEMCO and HECMS were transferred to Ktimatologio for the same purpose. It must be noted that the HEMCO and HECMS personnel have had more experience than the newly recruited Ktimatologio personnel in supervising cadastral survey studies, because the former had been involved in the supervision of the 1^st Program.

Data collection process

Currently the greater part of the collaboration between Ktimatologio/HEMCO and the private sector companies lies in the area of data collection. Indeed, the magnitude of the Hellenic Cadastral Project is such as to cause a major change in the Greek surveying engineering industry and have an impact also on other related disciplines (e.g. legal profession and forestry industry). Initially (1994), surveying engineers represented the major professional group that strived for the commencement of cadastral survey studies and were keen to undertake the majority of the involved work. The related professions seemed unprepared, hesitant or even reluctant to get involved in these studies. The multidisciplinary nature of the cadastre, however, involved the necessity of collaboration among various professions which in the past had been "segregated". Gradually, however, this attitude has changed. A significant role in this respect was played by the Ktimatologio policy of continuous encouragement for its collaborators to use legal, forestry, IT, and quality control expertise. In its last call for bids (3^rd Program), in particular, Ktimatologio required the candidates to form joint ventures between surveying engineering companies and forestry companies and, in addition, to secure cooperation with law and IT experts. All these efforts are made to ensure cohesion within the joint ventures undertaking cadastral survey works and synergistic use of the expertise of the members of each venture.

Also noticeable is the interest of non-Greek companies applying for participation in the program (Table 3). So far, a significant number of foreign applicants, mainly from EU countries, has succeeded in winning contracts either individually or in collaboration with Greek companies. This, despite the adversities faced by these companies due to differences in language and the idiosyncratic nature of the projects.

Table 3: Number of Applicant Companies in the 3^rd Program by Specialty & Ethnicity⁴

Specialty	Ethnicity		Total
	Greek	Foreign
Engineering (Surveying)	181	23	204
Lawyers or law companies	98	0	98
Forestry	37	2	39
Information technology	11	1	12
Other (mostly quality control)	8	0	8
Total	335	26	361

Another type of collaboration between the public and private sector agencies is represented by the support that private sector contractors provide to HEMCO in carrying out certain tasks, prescribed by Law, during the data collection and validation period, that is, during the period between the signing of the contracts and the recording of the "first registrations". Specifically, Law 2308/95 mandates that, after collection of the declarations,⁵ any change in land parcel legal rights be registered in the cadastre before its being registered in the registry system. This is implemented by requesting people who make land transactions to attach to the documents submitted for registration to the registry office a certificate issued by the pertinent cadastral office. If cadastral offices have not yet been established in the areas being surveyed and the private sector contractors are still in possession of the collected data, HEMCO has arranged that the contractors check the data and determine whether the pertinent property has been properly declared. HEMCO then issues the required certificate. In this manner, the cadastral system is kept updated and matches the registrations of the Registry System.

A third area of collaboration between the private and public sectors concerns the accumulation and conformity of know-how about cadastral issues. Specifically, private sector contractors who are involved in the data collection process are encouraged to record the problems faced during the process and report them to Ktimatologio along with recommendations. The Ktimatologio staff collects this information, combines it with information obtained from other sources, prepares the answers that best suit each case, and issues guidelines on how each problem should be handled by Ktimatologio collaborators. This allows expertise from a large number of professionals to be centrally pooled, synthesized, and used for the benefit of the entire Project. Such procedure is beneficial particularly in the initial stages of the Project because of the large variety of problems encountered in the field and the still unclear responses.

A last area of collaboration between the public and private sector agencies is to be found in the support provided by Ktimatologio to the registry offices in order that they can handle the increased demand for services in the areas where the cadastral survey studies take place. Indeed, in these areas it often occurs that people request certificates to document their declared property rights but the registry offices do not have sufficient personnel to cope with the amount of demand. In such cases, Ktimatologio provides funds to the registry offices so that they can hire additional temporary personnel (mostly junior lawyers) to carry out their mission.

Public awareness programs

The success of cadastral survey projects depends heavily on the responsiveness and participation of the public (e.g., submission of declarations, objections, appeals etc).⁶ Since the time periods for collecting declarations, objections and appeals are not known in advance, and since these periods differ from program to program, Ktimatologio must engage in a continuous, lengthy and comprehensive public awareness program to inform all people who have rights on land about the progress of the Project and the action they should take. To accomplish this mission, Ktimatologio has cooperated with private sector companies specializing in marketing communications campaigns. So far, Ktimatologio has launched two campaigns that involved the use of a wide variety of media (TV, radio, and press) and covered a wide range of geographical scales (local, national, and international). It is anticipated that this effort will continue in the future and additional campaigns will be launched.

Research programs

For certain highly specialized issues for which there are no pre-established answers, Ktimatologio and HEMCO have resorted to academic institutions for assistance. For example, they have outsourced a research project to the National Technical University of Athens to determine an appropriate spatial data transfer standard that may be used for the exchange of spatial data among agencies in the country. The development of such a standard would greatly facilitate not only the exchange of data between Ktimatologio and its collaborators but also the diffusion of spatial data within the government and business sectors.

Difficulties encountered in the collaboration between the private and public sectors

Notwithstanding the fact that the collaboration between the public and private sector agencies in the development of the Hellenic Cadastre has been very strong and synergistic, difficulties exist that hinder closer collaboration and the progress of the Project.

Legislative and institutional issues

The development of the necessary legislative infrastructure of the Hellenic Cadastre has been a lengthy and burdensome procedure. Specifically, it took approximately two years for the approval of the first cadastral law (Law 2308/95) and three more years for the approval of the second law (Law 2664/98). During this time the various involved parties (political parties, governmental organizations, professional associations, and social interest groups) had to go through extensive debates to overcome the major objections and reach an agreement at least at a general level. The authorities that were responsible for developing the legislation used extreme caution to maintain the delicate balance of power among the various competing stakeholders and gain the necessary support for passing the laws in the Parliament.

Another difficulty in the collaboration between the public and private sectors is to be found in the inability of HEMCO and Ktimatologio to perform certain tasks efficiently because the supervising authorities (EU, Greek Government) require them to follow long and multi-staged procedures to ensure that the public funds are properly used. These procedures cause delays in the progress of the program and friction among the involved private and public sector agencies. An indicative example of this kind of problem is the long time that elapsed before Ktimatologio could hire its first scientific personnel. Indeed, in this case, the management of Ktimatologio and its supervising authorities had agreed to hire such personnel following completion of the "organizational study" of the company. This task, which involved the specification of the organizational chart, the job descriptions, and the hiring procedure, was to be done by HCC, which, according to the EU directives, had to be selected through an open international tender. This selection process took almost a year. It took HCC a further period of several months to get acquainted with the status and situation of the Hellenic Cadastre and to carry out the study. Thus, it comes as no surprise that it took Ktimatologio almost three years since its establishment to hire its first professional staff. During all this time the company was operating using HCC personnel and a small staff it was obliged to hire to cover the most urgent needs. The lack of sufficient personnel forced Ktimatologio to slow down the pace of the program and delay certain tasks planned for completion by year 2000.

Conflicting interests between the involved private and public sector agencies

The public and private sector agencies involved in the development of the Hellenic Cadastre have conflicting interests and, therefore, it is expected that contentions and rivalries among them would, in certain circumstances, inhibit collaboration. Most indicative in this regard is the case concerning the selection of contractors. The selection is conducted through open international tenders in accordance with EU directives. Indeed, right from the beginning, tender participants have been very competitive and aggressive in their effort to establish themselves as major players in the Hellenic Cadastre Project. This hunger for better placement has led them to strive, through appeals, lawsuits, and complaints, to gain every potential advantage possible over their competitors during the course of the multi-staged tender evaluation procedures. HEMCO and Ktimatologio on the other hand, focus their efforts on minimizing the risk of possible Project setbacks due to potential court or EU mandates that would freeze the progress of certain programs until the raised complaints are investigated and resolved. The consequence of this situation is that there is a mutual mistrust among the involved parties during tender evaluations and a situation of continuous alertness. In addition, these parties devote a significant amount of resources (personnel, time, and effort) to combat their opponents and protect their interests. These facts contribute to weaken the collaboration between public and private sectors and cause delays in implementation of the Hellenic Cadastre Project.

Inexperience of the private sector to deal with large scale cadastral survey projects

Before the initiation of the Hellenic Cadastre Project, the Greek surveying engineering and forestry industries had been involved in relatively small-scale projects and consequently had adapted their structure and operations to handle the needs of such projects. Most of these companies had a relatively simple corporate structure and employed a limited number of scientific personnel. However, cadastral survey studies are at least an order of magnitude greater than the projects such companies normally undertook and, therefore, there was a need for them to restructure rapidly and adapt to the new situation. This industrial change, combined with the novelty of the task⁷ and the lack of well-established procedures for interaction between the contractors and the supervising authorities during the course of a project, has created difficulties in the collaboration between the involved public and private sector agencies.

Cultural difficulties

Cultural difficulties are faced primarily by foreign companies which participate (or wish to participate) in the Hellenic Cadastre Project. These difficulties are mainly due to differences in language, lack of knowledge about local land administration matters, and differences in the way companies operate in Greece. The result of such differences is that foreign firms frequently fail to satisfy tender requirements or, when they are awarded contracts, go through extensive adjustments and learning phases in order to fulfil their contractual obligations.

Conclusions

Development of the Hellenic Cadastre is achieved relying on close collaboration between the private and public sectors. Examples of this collaboration include development of the Hellenic Cadastre regulatory legislative infrastructure; establishment of the necessary organizational infrastructure of the system; and collection and validation of the initial cadastral registrations. Obviously, the form of collaboration, as existent today, has required a great deal of effort to be built and has gone through various stages of development. The uncertainty that existed at the beginning of the Project, when there was no clear vision about how the cadastre should be built and how it should operate, has been reduced considerably. An important contribution to this development has come from the executive management of the Hellenic Cadastral Project which, through a sequence of cautious steps, has been able to overcome the obstacles encountered, build consensus among the major interested parties (political and others), secure a strong support for the Project at various policy-making forums, keep the Project on track, and avoid major setbacks. The future will show whether this momentum that has been built during the past five years will be maintained. Indeed, the experiences acquired in the past would provide a useful background for future decisions and actions.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Dr. D.K. Rokos for his comments on this paper and Ms. Maria Maragkou of the IT Department of Ktimatologio S.A. for her assistance in making the maps included in this paper.

Disclaimer

The views expressed in this paper are personal and do not necessarily represent the official views of Ktimatologio S.A. or any other associated organization.

References

Hellenic Republic, 1995a, "Law 2308. Cadastral surveys for the development of the National Cadastre. Procedure up to the first registrations in the cadastral books and other regulations" Government Gazette, Issue 114A/, pp. 3837-3841 (in Greek).

Hellenic Republic, 1995b, "Approval of the technical specifications, the content of cadastral diagrams and tables, and the pricing of cadastral survey works up to the first registrations in the cadastral books" (Decision of the Minister of Environment, Physical Planning and Public Works No 71154/4228/12-7-1995) Government Gazette, Issue 639B/19-7-1995, pp. 4249-4267 (in Greek).

Hellenic Republic, 1998, "Law 2664. The National Cadastre and other regulations" Government Gazette, Issue 275A/3-12-1998, pp. 4249-4267 (in Greek).

HEMCO, 1994, National Cadastre: Technical Specifications (Version approved by the Board on May 1994), Hellenic Mapping and Cadastral Organization, Tim. Vassou 11-13, 11521 Athens, Greece.

4.4 Cadastre and land administration in Romania

Catalina Nicolae

Introduction

Cadastral activities in Romania comprise the following stages:

· 1794-1832: Introduction of the general cadastre in: Transilvania, Banat and Bucovina (1794); Muntenia (1831); Moldova (1832)

· 1919-1933: foundation of the Cadastral Department in the Ministry of Agriculture (1919); agrarian land reform (post-First World War); establishment of the General Cadastre and the "Land Books" (Law no. 23 of 1933)

· 1933-1955: start of the modern cadastre; activity interrupted during and after the Second World War period due to the opposition of the communist regime.

· 1955-1989: use of different types of land registration (land records, cadastre) especially regarding the assets of the old agricultural associations and agricultural state enterprises.

· 1990-1996: mobilization of the cadastral units personnel in the implementation of the Land Law.

· 1996: entering into force of Law no. 7/1996 on cadastre and real estate publicity. The law provided the legal framework for organizing and operating a modern general cadastre.

The General Cadastre

According to the definition given by the law: "The general cadastre is the unitary and compulsory system of technical, economic and legal records by which are achieved the identification, registration and representation on cadastral maps and plans of all lands as well as of other immovable property in the whole territory of the country, regardless of purpose and owner". The basic entities of this system are the parcel, the construction and the owner. By "real estate" in the sense of the law, is meant the parcel of land, with or without buildings.

The Organization of the Cadastre

The law on Cadastre and Real Estate Publicity has established the organisation of the land registration system and the NOCGC, IGPCC and COCGC funding. According to the law, the activities in the field of geodesy, cartography and cadastre are organised, led, guided and controlled by the National Office of Cadastre, Geodesy and Cartography (NOCGC). This agency was founded in November 1996 as a public institution, with legal personality, subordinated to the Government of Romania. The NOCGC is under the general direction of the Prime Minister's Office. Under the subordination of the NOCGC is the Institute of Geodesy, Photogrammetry, Cartography & Cadastre (IGPCC) and the County Offices of Cadastre, Geodesy & Cartography (COCGQ) which are public institutions, also with legal personality. At present, in Romania, there are 42 county offices.

The ministries, other central State institutions, self-managed public companies and other legal persons organise specialised cadastres in the domains of agriculture, forestry, waters, industry, extraction industry, real estate and urban areas, road, railway, naval, air tourism, built-up and natural protection zones (subject to high risk of natural calamities or pollution and degradation.)

From the technical and economic point of view the specialised cadastres are systematic inventory and record subsystems of real property, with observance of the technical norms elaborated by NOCGC, and of the basic general cadastral data regarding area, utilisation class, and owner. Depending on the specific field of activity, the cadastral authority shall carry out the relevant required geodetic, topographic, photogrammetric, cartographic, and other works.

At the State level, the three functions (technical, juridical and economic) of the cadastral system are performed by the NOCGC, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Finance; at the regional level they are performed by the COCGC, the Land Book Offices (LBO) and the Public Finance Boards.

The technical functions of the general cadastre are the responsibility of the NOCGC and consist in determining, through surveys, the position, form and size of every parcel, the categories of use, and the owners. In the framework of the application of the Cadastre and Real Estate Publicity Law, the NOCGC has separate responsibilities concerning cadastral land registration. It sends to the territorial LBO (Land Book Offices) the following information: (a) parcel number, (b) name, address and identification code of the owner or holder, (c) attributes by parcel (surface area, category of use, etc.).

The Ministry of Justice organises, coordinates, and controls the publicity activity of the land book offices of the courts by a specialised department.

The activity of the National Office of Cadastre, Geodesy and Cartography, of the institutions in its subordination, and of the specialised cadastre of ministries and other central State institutions shall be funded from the State budget and through outsourcing. The specialised cadastres of self-managed public companies, trading companies, and other legal persons shall be self-financed.

During the 1970-1993 period topographic base plans were prepared for over 90% of the area of Romania.

To meet the present-day requirements of the General Cadastre it is necessary to carry out the following activities:

· execution and updating of cadastral plans at large scales (1:500; 1:1000; 1:2000) relative to the local inner zones (approximately 10,000 sq. km);

· execution and updating of cadastral plans at 1:2,000 and 1:5,000 scale relative to local outer zones and the zones covered by the current land reform (approximately 100,000 sq. km);

· scanning and vectoring of the existent topographic plans and maps, over an area of approximately 150,000 sq. km.;

· use of GIS technology for General Cadastre application and establishment of cadastral databases, with suitable equipment; experimentation and introduction of modem technological processes.

Modernization of the Cadastre

Modernisation of the cadastre and land registration system aims to achieve the following objectives:

· Protect real property and secure its possession

· Support the real property taxation system

· Insure security of credits

· Develop and monitor the land market

· Protect the state real property

· Reduce disputes on land matters

· Facilitate the land reform on agriculture

· Improve urban planning and development of urban infrastructures

· Protect the environment

· Provide statistical data

The principal technical documents of the General Cadastre to be drawn up at commune, town and municipality level shall include:

· cadastral land plot register

· alphabetic index of owners and their domicile

· cadastral register of owners

· property bodies register

· centralised record cards of cadastral parcels by owner and by category of use

· cadastral plan

The database may also be drafted and filed in the form of records accessible to automatic data processing equipment, with an equivalent juridical effect. After finalising the works on the spot, the data obtained for each territorial/administrative unit shall be processed, recorded in the technical documents of the cadastre and introduced into the cadastral database.

The contents of the cadastral maps shall include:

· geodetic base

· boundaries

· communications network (electric, telephone lines, roads, railways, etc.)

· hydrography and hydrotechnical buildings

· technical installations

· postal numbers

· inscriptions

· localities, etc.

Until 1 July 1999 two land registration systems existed regarding the legal situation of all owners, lots and buildings. For the central and eastern parts of the country, the old system of Land Books (in operation for nearly 2 centuries), based on property records; each lot and building was provided with a cadastral number and a Land Book number. In the rest of the country land registration came under the Civil Code system, which is based on people (owner records) and thus is less efficient compared with the Land Book system.

The new system established by the Cadastre and Real Estate Publicity Law was implemented after 1 July 1999. This system is quite similar to the Land Book system under Decree no. 115/1938, but with certain differences and improvements. The new system will be introduced progressively throughout the country.

Law no.7 of 1996 on Cadastre and Real Property Registers establishes a unique system at the national level based on the Land Book registration. The system should cover the following three parts:

· registration of all land parcels and buildings,

· registration of owners of land and buildings,

· registration of limitations on land parcels and buildings.

The registration is contained in the Land Book registers which are maintained by the Land Book Offices of the Local Courts. In each district there are about 5 Land Book Offices, each responsible for the Land Book registers of a well-defined administrative area, covering a number of administrative territories (communes, towns and municipalities). The activity in the Land Book Offices comes under the overall coordination of the Ministry of Justice. According to the Notary Law all deeds concerning the conveyance of land property rights are to be legalised by a notary public.

All notarial deeds on conveyance of property rights and all court decisions concerning land and owners are thus registered by the Land Book Office. The Land Book Office will extract requested information from the registers in order to inform clients and notaries. The District Cadastre Office registers all changes on parcel boundaries.

According to Art. 44 of the Regulations on the organisation and operation of the Land Book Offices, registration in the Land Books can be of three types:

· tabulation of real estate ownership rights, other principal real estate rights and real estate accessory rights;

· temporary registration of said rights, subject to subsequent justification;

· registration of other legal relationships, personal rights, legal actions, and measures on inalienability related to Land Book real estate items.

The registration process consists of the following steps:

1. The application for registration is addressed to the Land Book Office by the interested party or by a notary public having a power of attorney;

2. The Land Book Judge checks the deeds, the effected payment of the judicial taxes, and issues a decision;

3. If the application is accepted, the Land Book officer identifies the real property number, checks if the content of the deed corresponds to the content of the Land Book, makes the respective Land Book registration, and files the Land Book;

4. The applicant is informed by mail of the conclusion.

According to art. 52 of Law no. 7/1996, "the deadline to complete a registration is stated to be 20 days from the date of application and cannot exceed 60 days from the application date." Notwithstanding this provision longer waiting periods for registration may occur. Other registries include agricultural registers; after 1991, new regulations were passed for their restructuring although agricultural registries were functional even previously. These documents are kept by the town hall of each administrative district and are a medium for depicting the unitary situation of individual family assets (land lots, crops, livestock, buildings and appurtenances, means of transport, agricultural machines etc.). The situation is updated annually by the town hall in conjunction with the Ministry of Agriculture and Food and with institutions in charge of statistical matters and also with the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Finance. These registries are official records and an important source of information for state bodies.

No IT system is available for data collection and processing, and this creates a number of difficulties. Some private companies developed a LIS for small areas, especially in the cities. But at the national level LIS activities are still at a preliminary stage.

The newly established agency of the National Office of Cadastre, Geodesy and Cartography will have the following duties and powers:

· organise, manage, direct and control the execution of geodetic, topographic, photogrammetric, remote sensing, cadastral and cartographic works at national level.

· develop norms, promote specialised techniques, procedures and methodology in line with the technical and scientific developments in the cadastral domain.

· issue licenses to natural and juridical persons capable of carrying out technical cadastral works.

· organise the national geodetic and cartographic fund as well as the data bank of the unitary cadastral system.

· ensure the execution, completion, modernisation and maintenance in usable conditions of the national geodetic network, under the terms of law and in cooperation with the Ministry of National Defence.

· advise concerning the topographic content of maps, plans, atlases, guidelines and the other cartographic documents necessary for public use.

· make available to public authorities and other interested institutions, as per law, synthetic statistical statements concerning land and constructions.

· carry out the pertinent activities resulting from international commitments.

Restitution and privatization

After 1989, as part of the process of transition to a market economy, Romania has established a new legal framework for land administration. New laws were adopted to regulate the property rights on land and buildings and to support the land market, namely:

· Land Law no.18 of 1991, the so-called Restitution Law, disciplines the creation of property rights on the land of former co-operative farms

· Law no. 112 of 1996 deals with the restitution of privately owned dwellings taken over by the state during the communist period

· Law no. 54 of 1998 focuses on the legal land market

· Law no. 213 of 1998 addresses public property and its legal status.

Land restitution status in April 1999

The total area involved in the land restitution process is about 9.4 million ha. This is 39% of the total area of Romania (23.8 million ha). By April 1999 about 7.7 million ha had been restituted to eligible persons.

There are about 4.3 million claimants regarding land (i.e., 41% of the total rural population). About 3.3 million claimants have already received their "Property Title", i.e. the certificates that confirm the transfer of land into private ownership. The rights created by this process are real property rights. The owner enjoys all the rights under the provisions of the public security legislation.

Under Law no. 18 of 1991 a maximum of 10 ha of arable land and 1 ha of forest land per family are restituted to the former owners or to their heirs.

Law no. 169 of 1997 complements Law no. 18 of 1991, concerning restitution of up to 50 ha of arable land and up to 30 ha of forest land per family. In the first phase, requests of the owners were centralised. In the second phase the land reserve to comply with the requests was established. Subsequently, restitution was initiated for those areas.

The above laws were enacted to organise an effective system of restitution and development of a land market. However, the application of these laws turned out to be long and difficult because of different problems such as:

· The applicants for reconstitution of property rights could not present documentary evidence of such rights because the required documents had disappeared. According to the law such persons could appeal to the competent County Commission. If the appeal was rejected the applicants could make a court appeal.

· The owners failed to apply for reconstitution of their property rights within the prescribed deadline.

In many cases original plots could not be returned because in the meantime they had been converted into non-agricultural use. The resulting "allocation" has led to thousands of court cases.

After the land restitution process, properties of the large state cooperatives disappeared. The large agricultural holdings were divided into small land lots (0.3 - 1.5 ha). Such land lots are too small for efficient land utilisation.

Implementation of the Land Law requires the following:

· establishment of local commissions in the municipalities;

· establishment of district commissions to validate the decisions of the local commissions and to solve the appeals made by the owners;

· completion of parcelisation by the cadastral specialists of the Agriculture Cadastre Offices or by the contracted surveyors;

· delivery of the acquired possession minutes, followed by the issue of Property Titles.

These processes are confronted with the following constraints:

· in about 20% of the administrative territorial units there is a lack of cadastral specialists to carry out the surveying;

· reconstitution and creation of property rights are not performed according to a unified national methodology;

· difficulty to reconstitute property rights in hill-side areas due to the owners' requests to retain former locations;

· often basic cadastral standards are not applied;

· when the surface area is not sufficient to cover all the applications for reconstitution of the property rights according to the deeds submitted by the owners, the areas of the plot are reduced according to the land deficit;

· when owners choose to establish an association, possession is acquired on an association, and not on an individual basis;

· field measurements for parcelisation are carried out using approximate methods and only exceptionally employing efficient survey equipment.

Proposal for improvement of the land restitution process

· Decentralisation of the processing activities through privatisation of the present Agriculture Cadastre Offices which have teams of surveyors and technicians;

· Processing of the cadastral works first, followed by the issue of the remainder Property Titles according to Law no. 18.

The adoption of these measures will result in a better spending of the budgetary fund and in the avoidance of work duplication by the Agriculture Cadastre Offices and Cadastre, Geodesy and Cartography County Offices. In fact the cadastral activity would be under a unique agency and better related to the Cadastre and Land Registration Project jointly funded by the World Bank and the Romanian Government.

The effects of land restitution on ownership

The new situation has found the Romanian society unprepared to sustain the impact from the financial and social aspects. A large number of those who received the land are unable to cultivate it. A study conducted by the Institute for Rural Economy and Sociology on 500 communes shows that:

· 57% of owners are over 65 years of age

· 43% of these live in the cities

· 39% are former salaried persons or pensioners of the non-agricultural sector.

The land fragmentation has resulted in several social and psychological implications:

· a number of parcels are not cultivated individually;

· a few owners have agricultural machines and equipment to work the land and most of them request the services of state enterprises;

· litigations concerning parcel location and soil quality;

· owners' interests, which are multiple and sometimes divergent. The motivation of a young owner whose only income source is farming differs from that of an old owner;

· migration of the population from urban to rural areas, though the phenomenon is not of the anticipated dimensions;

· after difficult experiences in individual and independent farming most owners opt for some forms of association.

Generally association agreements are fragile, having numerous difficulties:

· they provide weak security because the agreement can be cancelled at any moment by the land owner;

· everything is based on mutual trust, but the conditions for rearrangements of social relations are not conducive to such.

An alternative type of agreement could be the leasing agreement introduced by leasing law no. 36/1997. This type of agreement has the advantage of providing better guarantees to the farmers, thereby encouraging investments.

Land and property taxation

In Romania the land and property taxation system is characterised by a large variety of forms and methods aimed at collecting the necessary resources for public budget functions and financing. The traditional forms are mainly taxes and duties, which can be both direct and indirect. Taxes are compulsory and non-reimbursable payments, legally imposed on the income and assets of natural or legal persons. Duties are imposed on persons for different services they have requested and received. Taxes can refer to land, industrial or commercial assets, can be on free professions, property, inheritance and donations, luxury goods, turnover, output and sale, import/export and transit, value added, stamps, registration, etc. The Ministry of Finance is responsible for the general taxation system and for regulating and enforcing taxation conditions and forms of individual public obligations and exemptions.

Regarding taxes and duties on property, a distinction is made between taxes on buildings and land lots (Law no. 27/1994 on local taxes and duties) and taxes on agricultural income (Law no. 34/1994 on agricultural income). Agricultural income taxes are to be paid by all those who own arable land and those who have had real estates reconstituted according to Law no. 18/1991 and who have been allotted the land under a provisional certificate or a land possession report, even though they have not been provided with a "Property Title". This agricultural income tax has been suspended from 1996 to 2000.

Land transfers require to be performed through authenticated notarial deeds. The taxes levied by notaries are adjusted according to the value declared by the parties which, however, cannot be inferior to the floating value ascertained through the examination requested by the Public Notaries Chamber. For registration of transactions in case of deeds under private signature (i.e. not certified by a public notary), the fees are similarly calculated, but deeds that have been authenticated by a notary are not taxable for registration. As concerns tradesmen, they have to also pay value added tax for their property transactions (land or buildings).

According to an Emergency Ordinance issued in 1997, personal income tax is imposed annually on the basis of a statement from the taxpayer or of different elements from fiscal bodies. Usually, taxes on income concerning salaries, pensions, interests, revenues and other similar earnings are withheld at source and those concerning other types of revenues and income are collected through instalments.

Succession taxes are imposed on the value of the whole inheritance, including movable and immovable property and excluding proven debts.

Assessment and taxation of immovables is a function of the value declared by the parties which, however, cannot be inferior to the examination value.

The property market

Prior to 1990 no land transactions took place in Romania. Occasionally, land transactions were conducted in non-collective zones. This explains the reason for the present land prices instability. A great difference in prices exists for lands located in a same area. Specialists consider that these differences should not exceed 15 -20%, yet today peaks of 100% occur.

Land transfer is governed by Law 54/1998 and is characterized by the following elements:

a) All privately owned lands are within the civil circuit;

b) Conveyance of the land rights through juridical deeds between natural persons is to be in an authenticated form but administrative authentication is no longer necessary;

c) Foreign citizens cannot obtain or hold property rights on any type of land;

d) Pre-emption rights can be established regarding conveyance of land for agricultural use outside the city but only if the conveyance is made by sale.

According to article 2 of the law on juridical movement of land, in case of transfer of land between natural persons, agricultural land use property per family cannot exceed 200 ha..

Private sector entities

The private sector capacity in the mapping, cadastral surveying, data collection and information system development program is limited, but the sector has the capacity to grow and maintain itself if a secure source of contracts can be ensured for a few years. The public sector capacity to implement the whole program does not exist and would be difficult to create given the working conditions of the public sector. Thus, the private sector will be utilised on a steadily expanding basis to provide the services necessary for the bulk of the program.

Activities take place in the public and private sectors. Surveying can be carried out by both the public sector and by licensed private firms and individuals. Public sector services are provided through Land Book offices.

NOCGC is in charge of licensing private entities for certain activities:

· Participation in tenders

· Assigning contracts and co-operation acts

· Providing advisory services

· Execution of field works and surveying

· Drawing up technical documentation

· Cadastre, geodetic and mapping work validation

Many private companies carry out services for public institutions especially for boundary settlements, the Land Law implementation, soil quality assessment, etc. Public notaries are governed by Law 36/1995 on public notaries and their activity.

The Ministry of Justice is responsible for authorising technical experts, who are asked to provide their services in case of property litigation in courts.

In 1998, the NOCGC began to organise the execution of the general cadastral works for a few territorial-administrative units in every county, with funding coming from the State budget. Because limited funds allocated from the State budget restricted activities, cadastral work started with the delimitation and marking of the administrative boundaries of communes, towns, and municipalities, as well as the limits of the urban area. The intention is to create a network of administrative boundary points which will be given in absolute coordinates in the EUREF/WGS 84 coordinate system, using transformed existing data or, if not available, the data obtained by GPS. An estimated 1.5 million boundary points will be stored in a new database.

Besides financing from the budget, COCGC obtains 70% of the amount received from fees paid by customers. These fees can be used for material expenditures including new investments. In the first three-month period of 1999 the COCGC obtained almost 1.05 billion ROL (about US$ 70,000). Cost recovery for cadastral implementation could be made through privatising services that are self-financed. This will constitute another income source at state budget level.

At present the NOCGC is working on the General Cadastre and Real Estate Publicity project together with the World Bank and in collaboration with the Ministry of Justice. This project is for US$25 million and extends over a period of 6 years (1998-2003). The funds are intended for the systematic introduction of the General Cadastre in 8 counties and sporadically in other 18 counties. It also involves procurement of equipment, carrying out of works and preparation of the methodology and procedures necessary to extend the work throughout the country.

A second project ("Urban Real Estate Cadastre") has been prepared by the Ministry of Public Works and promoted by the Department for European Integration. This project concerns two pilot towns (Síghisoara in Mures county and Odorheiul Secuiesc in Harghita county) and started in the spring of 1999, after approval by the German Government.

It is important to emphasise the fact that these two projects do not overlap. They have in view the establishment of certain types of approach and the execution of works to support the creation of the record system of the General Cadastre and Urban Real Estate Speciality Cadastre to facilitate the modernisation of the cadastral system in Romania.

Agricultural policy and good governance

Agriculture has an important role in Romania. Farmers produce about 20% of the Gross Domestic Product - this is about double the average of other central and east European countries. Implementation of the land law was initiated for some 9.3 million ha of the 10,709,433 ha under individual ownership. (See Table 1.) The remainder, generally situated in mountain areas, had not been collectivised.

Table 1: The agricultural land situation after privatisation (in ha)

Agricultural area	Total	Public domain		Commercial society		Individual owners
		Commune	Others	S.C.ASC*	Others
Arable land	9,338,069	183,563	193,355	1,071,892	63,433	7,825,497
Total	14,791,333	2,282,796	327,031	1,393,135	78,574	10,709,433

S.C.ASC - The old agricultural enterprises turned into commercial companies with shareholders.

A situation common of all private farms in transition is that the new farmers have a great need for information and advice. An efficient support system to provide information and counselling must take into consideration the specific problems and needs of the different groups of farmers. This year the Ministry of Agriculture and Food founded the National Agency for Agricultural Consultancy. The scope of this agency is to support private farm businesses by providing practical information, counselling and professional training to the farmers. The main elements of the strategy of the National Agency for Agricultural Consultancy are:

· Focus on services;

· Participation of the farmers in conceiving the services and consultancy program;

· Improved trust relationship between farmer and counsellor;

· Decentralisation of the consultancy activities at the municipal and county level;

· The recommendations provided to the farms must take into consideration the regional characteristics;

· Efficiency of the consultancy activity.

4.5 Land consolidation practices in Turkey

Hasan Dursun

Introduction

According to studies, the arable land in the world accounts for only 10% of the total land surface. Mismanaged land results in deserts and other environmental problems, affecting millions of hectares yearly. Land conservation and land reclamation schemes are considered essential in land use programs. Land consolidation can play an important role for improving rural situations as well as food production. Consolidated fields allow practical management to be undertaken to prevent soil erosion, sustain soil fertility and circulation of irrigation water. Due to the rapid population growth and land mismanagement, land consolidation is necessary to address not only economic and social but also environmental requirements.

Positive effects of land consolidation are:

· Increase in net land utilisation area;

· Decrease in the number of total land plots, with increase of plot sizes and uniformity of plot shapes;

· Decrease in the distance between farmhouse and land;

· Improvement in agricultural practices and decrease in labour requirements;

· Resultant increased net farmer income.

Agriculture has been developed in relation with other sectors of the economy such as industry and services. Land consolidation has also been developed taking into consideration social and economic conditions. For example, the size of agricultural field lots is determined by the technical level of the machines or tools used and the manpower available. The land consolidation process is a very long and sophisticated interdisciplinary process.

Legal gaps in land fragmentation

In Turkey the large variety of climatic zones contributes to the diversity in agricultural production. Due to the geographic, climatic, social and economic differences the size of farm holdings varies from region to region. According to surveys 28 million ha of total area are under cultivation. There are more than 4 million farm holdings, which have 22 million field plots. Economic success of farm holdings is very low because of the small size and uneven geometrical shapes of the lots.

Agricultural land fragmentation still occurs. The main reasons are:

· inheritance law;

· property and commerce laws;

· land use policies and the construction of agricultural infrastructures;

· hiring and distribution of state land to farmers.

According to Article 678 of the civil law, land consolidation is essential to increase productivity of agricultural land. Land consolidation assistance is provided by two official organisations. The Land Reform Law of 1984 provides for both voluntary and compulsory land consolidation under the supervision of the General Directorate of Agricultural Reform. Until now, the General Directorate of Rural Services has performed voluntary land consolidation works. Compulsory land consolidation practices have been applied only in state land areas.

Land consolidation process

Prior to the consolidation decision, two main aspects have to be taken into consideration: one is the economic, technical and social needs and the other concerns the desires of the land owners.

Preliminary studies and approval

· The first step in land consolidation consists in a preliminary meeting with the land owners. All the advantages of consolidation are explained to the farmers. If approved by two thirds of the owners of at least half of the involved area, the land consolidation project can be carried out.

· The cadastre, one of the most important components of the studies, is the second step in the land consolidation process. If no appropriate cadastral maps are available for areas which are to be consolidated, such maps, complete with topographic data, parcel shape, coordinates and the other existent land conditions are to be prepared. The maps also show the present status of the land and landowners.

· After obtaining the cadastral information the boundaries of the area planned for consolidation are determined in the field. The consolidation area should comprise all parcels of the owners.

· The list of owners and title deeds are prepared from the data obtained from the land office.

· Land consolidation is approved according to the list of owners and title deeds. The approving persons must hold at least half of the area and comprise two thirds of the owners.

· The preliminary study report is prepared. This addresses: (1) the location and the amount of the total area planned for consolidation; (2) cadastral information on the land parcels and present owners; (3) soil, topography and other natural features of the area; (4) type of land use; (5) agricultural production potential; (6) number of farmers and agricultural enterprises; (7) land fragmentation data, including number and shape of parcels; (8) requirements concerning irrigation, drainage, soil reclamation and conservation, transportation structures etc.; (9) recommendations and conclusions.

After being examined and approved by the General Directorate of Rural Services the report is sent to the cabinet. After cabinet approval, the land consolidation decision is published in the official gazette. The main planning process is then started.

Planning

The consolidation decision and consolidation area are publicised using common facilities in the area. A declaration that "This parcel is in the consolidation project area" is placed on title deeds.

The existing situation of the project area is determined with regard to irrigation, drainage, land levelling, soil reclamation and conservation requirements. All detailed works are planned. Maps of the project area are prepared using the topographic and cadastral structures with land ownership figures.

For land evaluation purposes, soil surveys and land grading are other essential and important components of the planning. The land grading method at present applied by the General Directorate of Rural Services uses interdisciplinary studies performed by the grading commission comprising technicians, farmers and other experts.

The first step in land grading is the determination of the "soil index" (IS). This is done through soil surveys. Soil depth and profile group, topsoil texture, land slope, and other factors (drainage, salinity, degree of erosion, etc.) affect the soil index. The soil index ranges from 0 to100 points.

Another grading criterion is the "land productivity index"(LPr) which is determined by the soil characteristics and the experiences of the farmers. The productivity index ranges from 0 to 10 points.

The last land grading criterion is the "land position index" (LPo) which is determined by the distance to the inhabited centres, the plot shape, the road condition, etc. The land position index ranges from 0 to 20 points.

The "parcel index"(PI) is then computed using 70% of the soil index value, and adding the land productivity index and the land position index values.

PI= 70% SI + LPr +LPo

The value of parcels (VP) is calculated as a function of the parcel area and parcel index.

After grading of the existent parcels, all other physical requirements for successful farming, including irrigation, drainage, conservation etc. are planned for implementation.

Six months before project application, all land owners are to be informed to protect their interests.

Implementation

As far as possible land is reallocated to a farmer as a single plot with appropriate characteristics; account is taken of farm size, topographic conditions, type of soil, type of land use and irrigation method in each block; each block is bordered by field roads, and includes irrigation and drainage systems.

The Parcel Index is recalculated for the new land allocations after completion of the physical works in the planned area, including irrigation, drainage, land reclamation, field road facilities, etc. The new plot allocated to a farmer must have a grade equivalent to the original land parcels held by the farmer before consolidation.

Grades	Parcel index
1	91-100
2	81-90
3	71-80
4	61-70
5	51-60
6	41-50
7	31-40
8	21-30
9	11-20
10	0-10

Parcels from grades 1 to 7 can be consolidated together, as can be parcels of grades 8 to 10.

The success and effectiveness of the land consolidation project depend on the Consolidation Ratio (CR). This is the ratio of parcel numbers after land consolidation (n) to parcel numbers before land consolidation (N).

When the land consolidation ratio increases, parcel size also increases, farm management becomes easier and the effectiveness of land consolidation extends for a long period of time.

Conclusions

A number of measures have been taken in Turkey to improve the livelihood of farmers by increasing crop productions and providing infrastructure facilities in rural areas. Land consolidation has a direct or indirect effect on rural development. The application of these rural development activities requires large-scale legal arrangements and organisation.

Land consolidation works have been carried out as of 1966 within village borders and irrigation project areas, but the desired level of development has not yet been reached. After more than 30 years of experience a new draft of law concerning the use of land resources including land consolidation has been dealt with in conformity with the State Development Plans.

The need for soil and water resources has been increasing every year all over the world, and in Turkey as well. The rapid growth of the world population may lead to starvation in the 21st century unless urgent measures are taken. It must not be forgotten that as human beings our future rests on the land.