Implementation of the municipal cadastre

Traditionally in Central America, land management and above all cadastral implementation have not been a priority for local governments. This situation is explained not only by the costly investment that this requires, but also by local authorities’ fear of reviving tenure disputes or losing political popularity due to the taxation involved in cadastral registration.

LAPs seek to increase municipal cadastral tax bases, which correspond for the most part to physical maps. To achieve this they carry out the collection of municipal information, train staff and provide certification to municipalities so that they can update the cadastre without the additional intervention of the programme.

Consequently, the cadastral updating work carried out by LAPs has meant a great increase in municipal cadastral bases. Although local governments generally concentrate their efforts on urban cadastral mapping, as this requires less effort and represents greater tax benefits, there have also been increases in rural cadastral bases. In the Comayagua department in Honduras, several years after the closure of the first phase of the LAP, several municipalities reported increases in tax receipts from rural areas and even reported a lower payment default rate in urban areas. It should be noted that municipalities in this department adopted ingenious collection mechanisms, such as tax collection tours.

The increase in receipts resulted mainly from a rise in the number of tax payers, not in property values. This is explained partly by the efforts made in cadastral mapping, but also by titling processes implemented at municipal government level. Generally speaking, the cadastral tax bases of municipal governments previously registered between 40 and 70 percent of property in urban areas and a lower percentage in rural areas. With the intervention of LAPs, all countries saw an increase in this base, particularly in urban areas.

Municipal governments strengthening titling processes and reducing the time taken to obtain titles has been another decisive factor. In Nicaragua, according to the final evaluation report of the Land Administration Programme (PRODEP) “the time taken to title land by the municipal route was less than in other cases”. It should be pointed out that in Nicaragua the results are more visible as there were few previous cases in which the municipalities had direct responsibility in the field of tenure regularization.

In countries such as Guatemala and Nicaragua, there are permanent mechanisms for the certification of cadastral professionals and technicians who have supported these processes. Tax collection in Guatemala has shown significant successes. The monitoring over 7 years of 11 municipal districts in the Petén department in Guatemala, which received the support of LAP I, revealed that the various municipalities succeeded in doubling taxes raised on property¹.

The Central American region has seen historical titling efforts at community level. This form of titling recognizes a territory in favour of a main population centre corresponding to the community, and in some cases adjacent localities have also been included (for further details see Powers of ICT in land administration).

There are several forms of titling of ICT, the first being community titling, which was adopted by Mexico in the 1917 Constitution, based on titles granted by the Spanish Crown to indigenous communities during the colonial era. This same model has been used for titling in some indigenous communities in central Honduras and the western part of Guatemala. The second form of titling considers a territory belonging to several communities. This mechanism was adopted for titling indigenous territories in Panama, Costa Rica and more recently through LAPs in the Atlantic area of Nicaragua and Honduras. Several population centres share a single title through this titling method. The model is based on traditional forms of use of territory in which a group of population centres carries out hunting, fishing or gathering of forest species in the same space. Territorial, intercommunity or comarca titling generally involves a second-level local authority being set up to which the state formally grants ownership or right of enjoyment. This can be based on legal recognition of territory as a specific legal entity (territory of the autonomous regions of Nicaragua, a Comarca in Panama) or by creating a legal figure, such as a civil association or cooperative (Atlantic area of Honduras and Costa Rica)⁴.

Once the communities have obtained the corresponding titles, new land administration powers are created within the territories. For these new powers, LAPs support the definition of these functions, the strengthening of local institutions, the creation of internal regulations, and local governance factors (see fact sheet on Analysis of tenure governance in ICT). With the recognition of titles, changes are similarly generated in the organizational structure of territorial administration agencies, for which LAPs offer backing of a different nature.