Cadastral Template - Field Data C1

C. Cadastral System

This page was last updated on 4 Jan. 2008
  C1. Purpose of Cadastral System  
 
  Description if the cadastral system has a legal (land transfer, land market), fiscal (land valuation, land tax), and/or multiple purpose role (planning, local government).
Country  
Argentina:

Cadastral system covers the following roles: legal (land transfer, land market), fiscal (land valuation, land tax), and multiple purpose role (planning, local government). As each province has its own cadastre the emphasis in the roles mentioned above vary according to the province, mainly in the multipurpose one.

Australia:

The cadastral systems in Australia were historically designed for the transfer of land ownership in a legal land market. Secondly the cadastral system supports the legal ownership of land, and defining, identifying, demarcating, measuring and mapping legal parcel boundaries. Due to the high integrity of the cadastral system it now plays a more fundamental role in broader land administration activities, as the core spatial data set in spatial data infrastructures (SDI). Through the computerisation of spatial and textual data the cadastre now serves a multi-purpose role supporting many activities. These include supporting an active land market, valuation of land and land taxation, land management and planning, land development, local government and utilities management, emergency management and many other multipurpose functions.

Austria:

The Austrian system is a "title registration". The registered owner has public faith of being owner. The title registration is operated in close cooperation with cadastre.

A development to cover the following aims can be recognized:

  • to administrate critical items,
  • to tax subjects, objects or rights and
  • to control the processes, infrastructure and their changes.

For all this it was and still is necessary to collect data and control over the 3 basic categories of data:

  • subject,
  • objects and
  • rights as relation between subjects with objects.

The Austrian cadastre is used for multiple purposes and serves as the basic system for Zoning plans, Provincial Geographic Information Systems as well as for IACS (Integrated Agricultural Control System).

Belgium:

Historically, Belgium has a Napoleonic Cadastre. The Belgian cadastre should have been in the beginning a legal and juridical cadastre system where the immovables files should be update by civil servants. These immovables files should be the proof of the property. The civil servants should have an active updating. But it wasn't so because it was not possible to consult all the needed titles.

The Belgian cadastre is a "personal cadastre". When we say that the Belgian cadastre is not a juridical cadastre, it doesn't mean the Belgian cadastre has not any juridical quality. Indeed, the Belgian cadastre doesn't give a title, but without title, the Belgian cadastre can give a presumption. The title ...

Brunei:

Brunei Cadastral system was designed for the proposed of registration, transfer of ownership etc.

Cambodia:

The cadastral system in Cambodia is designed to provide the legal ownership of land. Secondly, the cadastral system supports the transfer of land ownership in formal land market and supports the land administration activities.

China:

In China, land market grew and gradually matured only after the open-door policy implemented, so there was no operational cadastral system before that. It was in 1986 that the State Bureau of Land Administration (now assembled into the Ministry of Land Resources) started the re-establishment of cadastre in China. The multi-purpose cadastre and land information system have gradually been established, and put into use. Although the concept of multi-purpose cadastral system is widely accepted, the main applications of such systems are in land administration, the major users are governmental services.

Cyprus:

The cadastral system in Cyprus supports the legal ownership of land, land transfer, land valuation, and the definition, identification, demarcation, measuring and mapping of legal parcel boundaries. Today the cadastral system plays a fundamental role in broader land administration activities. Through the computerization of spatial and textual data the cadastre now serves a multipurpose role supporting many activities. These include supporting land management and planning, land development, local government and utilities management and many other multipurpose functions.

Czech Republic:

Present cadastral system works as a multipurpose tool (first of all for legal and fiscal purposes, but the cadastral data are generally used in planning, for making decision of local government and for all land oriented information systems).

Denmark:

Over time the Danish cadastre has changed from being primarily a basis for land valuation and taxation to a legal cadastre supporting a land market. Today the cadastre has a much broader objective, and it is accepted that when cadastral information is a part integrated information systems it can improve the efficiency of the land transfer process as well as the overall land management process. The last two decades has seen moves to establish a complete computerised cadastral information system. In short, the Danish cadastral system has met the challenge of adapting to the modern digital GIS-environment.

Fiji:

Endless boundary disputes with associated problems were very common when trying to locate boundaries of leases. This was the result of issuing leases of an area less than 10 acres on native land without proper survey. In late 1910, the Native Land Ordinance was amended to further protect the interest of lease holders. It was therefore required that all leases and other titles that would be registered in the Real Property Register had to be properly surveyed. For the first time, Regulations governing the survey of lands to be registered in the Real Property Register were enacted.

As in other countries in the region, the cadastral system in Fiji was historically designed for the transfer of land ownership in the legal land market. ...

Finland:

The purpose of cadastral system is to secure the legal interests in land and conveyancing. The system serves also fiscal purposes for which the tax authorities have a register. Furthermore the system serves more and more as a source of land information for planning etc.

Germany:

The land register shows the legal status of all real property. In its documentation and publication role it works as the statutory basis for property conveyancing, in particular to ensure unequivocal status of ownership and other titles, as well as for mortgage loans.

The cadastre in Germany is defined as the official register of all parcels and buildings in a state, in which all parcels are described with graphical and textual data. The real property cadastre is designed to show the de facto status of property. As far as legal property titles are concerned, the cadastre shows their scope and the part of the surface to which they extend. All relevant facts, such as designation, location, size and use, plus the boundaries as surveyed ...

Hong Kong:

Hong Kong started as a British colony in 1842 and its purpose of cadastral system is defined in the Land Registration Ordinance (1844) mainly for the transaction of land ownership, and has remained largely unchanged since then. Hong Kong emphasizes free trade and minimum government intervention. Other cadastral functions like recording and securing property rights and land boundary rights remain legally unimproved under a deeds registration system.

Hungary:

The Hungarian Unified Land Registry System is the integration of Cadastre and Legal Registry (Grundbuch) on legal basis and institutional level and serves different purposes.

Legally guarantees the security of ownership and other rights related to land and property in the same time supporting the land market providing statistical data to the government and decision makers for economic planning. The multipurpose nature of the Unified Land Registry System is the basic information for external users as local governments, banks, public utilities, lawyers, surveyors, etc. The cadastral map is compulsory to use for spatial planning and any land information system.

India:

The Cadastral systems in India were designed initially to earn revenue through collection of taxes on property. The cadastral surveys are important because invariably these surveys are linked with ownership of the property. The cadastral systems support the legal ownership of the land, depiction of legal and topographical aspects including area and parcel boundaries. Depiction of legal & topographical aspects of the land becomes more important if it pertain to urban/town property. Due to fast development activities, the system plays important role in land administration activities by policy makers, resource planners and administrators who make decision about the land. They need detailed land information than has been traditionally available.

Indonesia:

As stated in Article 19 BAL (UUPA), to guarantee the juridical assurance of land ownerships, the government conducts the land registration that covers all the regions of the Republic on Indonesia that consists of (a) surveying, mapping, and booking the lands; (b) registration of titles and transfers of those titles; (c) issuing the letter of evidence of land title that acknowledge as the strong evidence. Afterwards, based on the Government Regulation No. 24 Year 1997, the of land registration is defined as "the sequence activities conducted by the government continuously and regularly, consist of physical and legal data acquisition, processing, registration, representation, and maintenance, in forms of maps and registers of land parcels and strata title units, and issues the certificate of titles and encumbrances.

Israel:

The modern Israeli Cadastre is based on Torrens principles (Registration of Titles) and it covers the following roles: legal (land transfer, land market), fiscal (land valuation, taxation, assessment), and multiple purpose role (land management, planning, land development, local government and utilities management, emergency management etc).

The Israeli cadastre is a juridical official register, shows the de facto legal status of all parcels and properties in a state. As far as legal property titles are concerned, the cadastre shows their scope and the part of the surface to which they extend. All relevant facts, such as location, area, use and parcel boundaries as surveyed.

Today, the cadastral information is a part of integrated information systems and it improves the overall land management process. The last two decades has seen moves to establish a complete computerized cadastral information system.

Iran:

The First Cadastre Project's objective is to develop a real estate registration program which will provide:

    1. Property owners with security of ownership rights;
    2. commercial banks with the confidence necessary to give secured credit against real estate;
    3. the real estate market with information on ownership and location of property as needed for the market to function effectively;
    4. Government agencies and institutions with basic information for urban planning and land management;
    5. The real estate market with information or property values; and
    6. The private sector with opportunities to develop in areas related to real estate registration.

In Iran the objective of the cadastral project is the creation of a Legal Cadastre system at this time and consequently multipurpose cadastral system in the future.

Japan:

National Land Survey has been carried out under provisions in laws mainly National Land Survey Law (Law No.180 of 1951) and The Act on Special Measures for Promotion of National Land Survey (Law No.143 of 1962). National Land Survey aims at improving basic data concerning land of the whole country for more efficient and reasonable land utilization through the scientific and comprehensive survey of actual conditions of the national land and reforming the cadastre.

National Land Survey consists of 3 surveys; Cadastral Survey, Land Classification Survey and Water Survey.

Cadastral survey is one of National Land Survey based on National ...

Jordan:

The cadastral system in Jordan has both, legal and fiscal role. In addition to that the cadastral maps are used as the base for land use planning, infrastructure planning and others, but the cadastral system itself cannot be considered as multi-purpose one even though this is the ultimate goal.

Kiribati:

During the British administration little effort has been made to survey registered freehold lands. This has created burden over the Magistrate courts for settlement and adjudication of disputes over boundaries. Loan institutions have emphasized the need for proper defined and measured plots when such plots of land are place for securities for loan. Likewise willing purchasers would be hampered and reluctant to purchase and develop unmarked and unmapped plots from registered owners.

Although land registers have been compiled for every island and updated for every new transaction, the essential cadastral mapping component that legally supported the ownership title over the land has still largely ...

Korea (Rep. of):

The Korea cadastral system started for the financial purpose and has been developed to the legal cadastral system in order to protect ownership. Recently, as the development of industry penetrates in all country and needs highly information on the facility of land, the national geographic information system and the cadastral information system working with an on line networking system have to be connected in order to provide multi-purpose cadastral service.

Latvia:

Purpose of Latvian cadastre is to provide society with up-to-date official information on all real properties in the Republic of Latvia by registration and maintenance of it in a unified system.

Cadastral data are used for:

  • corroboration of right to real properties;
  • preparation of documents for transaction with real properties;
  • use of real properties and planning of development;
  • cadastral valuation;
  • real property tax administration;
  • planning of economical development of country, ...
Lithuania:

The Real Property Cadastre and Register in Lithuania, including cadastral map, is an integrated multipurpose system administered by one institution. It secures the registered rights to real property; supports lawful conveyance of real property; serves for fiscal purpose, i.e. land taxation; it is also an instrument for national real property policy and a supporting tool for real property and credit market development in the country. Nowadays the real property cadastre and register data are becoming more and more important in other fields of public life including real property administration, valuation, territory planning; fulfillment of municipal tasks, the development of e-society and information infrastructure etc. An increasing use of information by different market participants, such as banks, notaries, real estate agencies, insurance companies, citizens and other entities puts new demands on the quality of data and easy access to information as well as on efficient dissemination.

Macao:

The cadastres are based on the proprietary land parcel which is the area defined by ownership. The cadastral system is the legal basis for all dealings in land, such as planning, assessment, etc.

Malaysia:

The objects of the Malaysian cadastral system are to provide security and simplicity to all dealings with land. It establishes and certifies, under the authority of the Government, the ownership of an indefeasible title to land and simplifies, hastens and cheapens all land dealings. The title is conclusive proof that the person mentioned therein is the owner of the land described therein. Valid titles require an accurate description of boundaries and as such cadastral survey plays an important role in the system.

Mexico:
(en espanol)

Modern cadastres have seen the usefulness of cadastral information not only as a fiscal instrument for tax collections, but also as a valuable tool for urban planning, endowing of public services, regulation of land tenure, human settlements, territorial limits and urban land use. Therefore, it is considered as a multipurpose cadastre.

At present, the main purpose for the cadastral system is fiscal, followed by urban, legal, historic, socioeconomic and petroleum purposes.

Among other aims are urban development, planning, fiscal administration, rural development, administration of natural resources and protection of environment.

Namibia: The primary function of the Cadastral System in Namibia is to define (delineate and document) ownership rights. According to the Constitution any land that has not been transferred from the state to a juristic person remains the property of the state. Any juristic person that has been granted freehold rights is free to trade (transfer at market value) that immovable property.
Nepal:

The cadastral system in Nepal basically commenced to collect land revenue for the Government by identifying the landowners and its tenants. Later on, Cadastral Survey was performed to support land reform programme of the Government. The allocation of revenue amount is based on the area and type of the parcel. The type of the parcel is depending on the various facilities available as indicated in Land Survey Rules and Regulations, 2058. Therefore, Cadastral Survey was carried to identify the landowners, tenants and to determine the types of land. Finally the Owner Certificate is distributed to the concerned owners after fulfilling the necessary formalities. The cadastral information, in the beginning were mainly used only for fiscal purposes ...

Netherlands:

The land registers and cadastre serve a multi purpose aim. First of all the Civil Code prescribes 4 requirements for a legal transfer of rights 'in rem', namely right of disposal of the seller, agreement between buyer and seller, obligatory title, and recording in the public registers hold by the Agency. The system of delivery is 'causal', which means that right holders have to secure their ownership right ('title') from a theoretical legal point of view in the chain of transfers. Because of the latin notariat, in practice information from the most recent notarial deed suffices and gives substantial evidence of ownership. The registers and cadastral maps therefore guarantee in practice legal land tenure security, and security in the land market. The same is valid for ...

New Zealand :

The principal and historical purpose is for issue and transfer of title to land, and the registration of interests relating to the land.

The cadastral system also supports land valuation and land rating systems and is used extensively for a range of government administration and local authority planning, utility management. It forms a fundamental layer in a number of GIS systems. Combined with street addressing it is used for definition of electoral boundaries and for emergency services.

Norway :

The Norwegian Cadastral system has a multipurpose role and is used for a broad variety of tasks by governmental institutions / the public sector and private companies. Today the most important matters are information for the land market and the planning activities and municipal services.

Philippines:

The Cadastral Survey in the Philippines is a survey made of extensive areas covering an entire municipality or city consisting of several or many parcels of land undertaken for the purpose of title clearance and land registration.

Cadastral Act 2259 which govern Cadastral Survey, is intended primarily for the purpose of quieting title to any land within a particular area by way of compulsory registration proceedings and thus minimize land conflicts.

The owners of lots surveyed must lay claim to their land holdings and must prove their ownership during the subsequent court proceedings because failure on their part to do so may give the court no choice but to declare these lands as public lands.

Agricultural development, realization of Municipal Land Use Plan and more accurate Tax Mapping, are some of the benefits that may result upon completion of the Cadastral Survey in the area.

South Africa :

The primary function of the Cadastral System in South Africa is to define (delineate and document) ownership rights. Any land that has not been transferred from the state to a juristic person remains the property of the state. Any juristic person that has been granted freehold rights is free to trade (transfer at market value) that immovable property. Accurate delineation of the ownership rights has enabled the development of a Cadastral Information System, which forms the basis for land valuation; land taxation, development planning, local authority demarcation and land administration.

Sri Lanka:

Objective of the cadastral system introduced (as short-term project) recently in Sri Lanka is to build the foundation for a long-term land administration program in Sri Lanka which would encompass the entire country in the next 15 to 25 years. In order to build the foundation for this long-term program, the proposed system would be implemented as a pilot learning and innovation program. The objective of the long-term cadastral program would be to improve the socio-economic and environmental conditions of the people by increasing land tenure productivity. This increased productivity is to be accomplished through a fully developed and functioning system of land administration that is fair, efficient and sustainable. Therefore, the objective of the proposed cadastral system would be to assess and build the methods and techniques, and organizational, legal and policy framework and capacity for making sustainable and comprehensive improvements in the land administration system in the long-run (parcel based cadastre, land titling and title registry).

Sweden:

The cadastral system including the land information system has the following purposes:

  • Promote and control sustainable and efficient land use
  • Provide land information for land titling, land use planning, land taxation, environmental control and business development.
Switzerland:

From 1912 until 1993, the cadastral system had purely a legal purpose and was mainly geared for securing land ownership rights. The cadastral surveying data have always widely been used as basis for utility mapping and many sorts of municipal planning and management purposes.

Since 1993, in addition to the legal purpose, cadastral surveying data (in digital form) are also to serve as basis for any land information systems.

Since around 2002, there is a growing need to document public law restrictions and responsibilities; working groups have been established to investigate their integration into the cadastral system (compare Figure 2). ...

Tanzania:

The original purpose of the cadastral system was legal. It has now been modified to also include fiscal and multipurpose aspects. See part 'A' on Country Context above for more.

Cadastral Surveying and Mapping (or the cadastre) is one of the major components of a modern Cadastral System; the other components being Land Registration and Titling, Physical and Environmental Planning, and Land Administration, including Valuation. The cadastral system operates within a framework of law and regulations.

The Land Act 1999 and the Village Land Act 1999 together provide the basic law in relation to the management and administration of land, settlement of disputes and related matters. All ministries, public and private institutions whose functions are associated with land development are required to work closely with the Ministry of Lands to ensure efficient implementation of the national land policy. Similarly Local Government Authorities are required to cooperate with the Ministry to ensure proper land administration in their respective jurisdiction.

Turkey:

Turkish cadastral systems based on the legal system. But land taxation is also one of the purposes the system. The cadastre in Turkey is to keep public registers for real estates, to make and update cadastral registers and maps, to assist land related projects and to make large scale topographical base map of the Turkey. From this context the cadastre has also multipurpose role, especially providing information for local land planning and development activities too.

Uzbekistan:

A modern cadastral system in Uzbekistan was begun to be formed in the middle of 1990-th because of the conversion to a market economy. In the beginning it was mostly oriented for fiscal purposes, meaning land registration for taxation. Later the Government has taken some decisions in 1997 and 1998 and also the Law "About State Cadastres" came into force in the year 2000. According to this, the main objective of the cadastral system became real property rights registration with the purpose to give guaranties from the State and for the development of the property market. Operating today, the cadastral system fulfils three basic purposes:

  • For the registration of real property rights (registration system);
  • For the recording and valuation of the property for taxation (fiscal system);
  • A geo-information system which combines legal, fiscal and other information about property, necessary for the management, planning and support of decision-making for many purposes (multi-purpose cadastral system).
Venezuela:

La promulgación de la Ley de Geografía, Cartografía y Catastro Nacional sentó las bases jurídicas para ejecutar un proceso estandarizado de formación y conservación del catastro, en el cual la geodesia y la cartografía son fundamentales para garantizar la ubicación precisa de los inmuebles en el ámbito territorial municipal. La gestión catastral apunta hacia la integración de un Sistema Nacional de Catastro, cuyos componentes estarán vinculados de manera permanente, para alimentar el inventario de la riqueza inmobiliaria del país, lo cual permitirá garantizar la seguridad jurídica del régimen de propiedad y ocupación de los inmuebles de un municipio, a través de la vinculación con el Registro Inmobiliario. ...