András Osskó
dr. László Niklasz
ABSTRACT
The Hungarian Land Registration System is a unified, multipurpose legal system, the integration of the Cadastre and the traditional Land Records(Grundbuch). This paper gives you a ral picture about a country in transition of the market economy where there was a fully operational Land Registry System but it wasn't prepared for the new challenges required by the political and economical changes in 1990.
There was a very strong need for the computerization and modernization of the Land Registration Organization because of the above and the rapidly increasing demands by the public.
The paper describes the concepts, the implementation phases of the program and diifficulties faced.during different projects. It also provides an overwiew about financial aspects (foreign supports and government funds) and summerizing conclusions we experienced during projects till now.
BACKGROUND AND INTRODUCTION OF THE HUNGARIAN LAND REGISTRATION SYSTEM.
This presentation wants to give you a real picture about a country in transition of the market economy where there was a fully operational Land Registry system, during the socialist regime, but it wasn't prepared for the new challenges that have been required by the political and economical changes in 1990 and the fulfilment of the suddenly increasing demand from the Land Registry services. In 1990 there was a kind of emergency and the Land Registration in Hungary was facing problems. That was a quite hard situation which required prompt steps to modernize and computerize the Land Registry to accomplish the increasing demands by the market and the policy. I think not only the Hungarian Land Registration has to solve such a huge task but many other country in transition. Therefore, I rather speak about the implementation of the computerisation of the Land Registry and difficulties during the implementation and conclusions what we experienced and I just touch technical aspects briefly.
By way of introduction you have to know something about the background of the Hungarian Land Registry system, that supports the understanding of the computerisation project in Hungary. As with many countries in Western and Central Europe,from the middle of the 19 th Century, real estates were double registered in Hungary. On one hand land and real estate cadastre was created for the purposes of the state and politics for taxation. On the other hand there was the factual land registry, which the contractual and mortgaged real estate was involved in. The land registers were aimed at the security of the ownership the soundness of the land transactions as well as the creditors' interests. The difference between the land registers and land tax cadastre can be recognised by the diverging structure and authorisation, the land registers were within juridical scope while the land cadastre was a part of the public administration.
The cadastral map served as a common basis for the land registers and for the land tax cadastre. The land registers and the land tax cadastre were parallelly used and mutual data exchange took place between them. After some time this fact resulted in double data registration, but the data integrity and consistency was not well maintained, and this fact caused a lot of uncertainity in the use. These circumstances (and to avoid parallel data updating and registration) led to the decision of 1971, that keeping records parallel is not expedient and authentic, but a unified registration has to be established, including all the data (mapping and legal) concerning the legal status of the real estates.The new unified land registration was completed by the land offices organisation for the entire country by communities in 1981.
Aims and system of the unified Land Registry
There are two aims to be pursued. Legally the land registers provide security for the titles, deeds, etc. to real estate and also they give certainty for the bona fide holders as well as promoting the advantageous utilisation of the real estates. The economic aim is to serve as a uniform base for establishing financial obligations for planning and for supplying statistical data for the government and organisation of land utilisation.
The unified Land Registration consists of:
Part I. the
descriptive data (parcel number, address, site area,
features of cultivation, soil quality, etc...)
Part II. titles i.e. Data relating to the ownership
(name, birth, address, etc...)
Part III. all the other titles and deeds (mortgages,
restrictions, easements, etc...)
Hungary has an area of 93000 km2 and 10,2 million inhabitants. In the middle of 90's there were over 7 million property records and 55000 cadastral maps which are maintained by the 115 District Land Offices countrywide and Budapest Land Offices. Land registry in Hungary has been maintained during the socialist regime apart from the socialist ownership. The majority of properties have been owned by the state and co-operatives but a low level of private property ownership existed especially residential units like flats, family houses, hobby gardens, etc.
Because of the relatively low number of transactions during socialism, there was not a strong need for the computerisation of the Land Registry. The land registration system was almost totally based on paper records, which meant that the maintenance of cadastral maps (boundary information) and property sheets (legal record)was carried out by manual methods.
The situation entirely changed during the end of 80's. The market transition, introduced in 1989, stimulated the land and property sector. The transition process has introduced mass privatisation, increased individual home ownership and placed severe increases on the demands for land registration information and data. The demands for land registration activities and datas has been increasing since there was political and economical changes in Hungary introducing the free market economy and multiparty democracy.
The land registration sector is a key component of a free market economy whereby the safe and secure transfer of title can be freely conveyed in Hungary as in many other European countries. The government acts as the guarantor of title through the act of registration of property which records all required legal, administrative, financial and physical description information within the system of the register and upon the cadastral map. The map records are tied to the legal and property records by means of a unique identifier, the parcel numbers. The Hungarian system provides a large scale basis for the collection and recording of other land related data (land use and classification, land protection) and this forms a real multipurpose cadastre. The multipurpose nature of the Land Registration System forms a potentially valuable state asset. Other developed countries including Western European countries are trying to move towards this kind of system. There are no more technical difficulties in these countries to integrate the cadaster and land registry forming a unified legal system but they have difficulties in legislation. There is no doubt that future development is the multipurpose, unified land registry as a legal system. The trend in the developed world assuring us that the Land Registration system as practised in Hungary is an advanced legal system and should be retained.
As I mentioned earlier, during socialism the number of transactions and the demand for reliable data have been relatively low compared to the market economy's needs. Hence the technical and organisational modernisation was delayed in the Hungarian Land Registry. In Western Europe the computerisation of Land Registry and cadastre begun in 70's and 80's running several year long pilot projects before they introduced the final solution, following the demand for the legal and mapping data of land and real estates.
Inspite of the advanced Hungarian Land Registration System, as a legal system, the organization itself wasn't prepared for the new requirements of the market economy and the policy. In 1990 the political and economical changes in Hungary, resulted in new laws, acts, legal rules which have affected the Land Registration organization very much. Some examples:
The Land Compensation Act
The land compensation program has created 2.1 million new parcels. The new numerical, coordinated boundary and legal information has to be registered, and entered into the land registration records.
Privatization
The privatization of state farms, cooperatives, state
industry, state owned flats have all placed enormous demands on
land registration.
Increased conveyancing by the public.
Demand for new products and services
The Local Authorities, utility companies and other users all require digital cadastral maps to support their management information systems.
It was obvious that the needs of the technical modernization and the Hungarian Land Registration Organization had to recognise these problems at an early stage and put into effect a "Computerization of Land Offices" project financed by PHARE with counterpart Government of Hungary funding. This project is primarily aimed at providing the technical facilities to allow the land offices to computerize the legal records. The project started in March 1992 and is still going on.
Difficulties at the beginning of the project.
A conceptional plan was worked out and a Technical Assistance Team has supported and managed the preparation and the implementation of the project later. The Technical Assistance Team was made up of Hungarian professionals and international experts.
The international Long Term Technical Assistance was provided by an Italian consultant FISIA between 1992-93 and British Know Edge Ltd. Co. Between 1993-97. The work program has been carried out by Know Edge, operating within a Long Term Framework Contract.
The Hungarian unified Land Registration System, with the integration of the former cadastre and the Land Records, is a very advanced legal system which means that the common data on cadastral map and legal documents have to be the same and the two parts of the Land Registry (map and legal document) have been maintained simultaneously. Theoretically the system should operate as an integrated mapping and legal system in single computer environment, but the practical implementation of the software and hardware development can only be carried out gradually, dividing the project into phases, giving priority to the computerization of the legal and administrative records (property sheets).
The computerization of Budapest Capital Land Registry has been a separate project, due to the scale of tasks and it's important role in the Hungarian economy.
PROJECT ACHIEVMENTS
The provision of system for property sheet management at the District Land Offices
PHARE has provided a total of 3 million ECU for the provision of PC based LAN database management systems at the 115 District Land Offices throughout the country.PC systems have been installed in all District Land Offices and some 6,5 million properties have been loaded between 1993-96.
Budapest Land Registry, the provision of system for property sheet management (BIIR).
A comprehensive survey of needs of the Budapest Land Registration was carried out and an information systems and Information Technolgy strategy was developed and finalized.
A PHARE Tender for 500 000 ECU has been issued to provide a property sheet management system and full workflow management. The implementation began in late 1995 and completed, and operationed in February 1997.
Swiss-Hungarian digital cadastral mapping project
The objective of the SFr 1.2 million project is to assist in setting up an Land Information System in Budapest as part of the National Cadastral Program.ITV Ag. a Swiss consultant and a project team with members from Budapest Land Registry prepared a Tender Document for setting up and test the neceessary procedures and hard- and software for updating cadastral map data with the LIS.
The winner and application software has been the Leica INFOCAM. During the implementation, the system was put into production in two pilot districts in Budapest, establishing a plan for the introduction of this sytem for the whole Budapest.An efficient data conversion, control point management, data flow from field surveying to the database and supply of data to users in digital and analog form is part of the project.The project started in late 95 and will be completed in 1998.
BUDAPEST LAND OFFICE SYSTEM
TAKAROS COMPLETE SYSTEM
The provision of systems for management and updating of cadastral maps and their integration with the property sheet records. (TAKAROS)
PHARE has budgeted a total of 4,35 million ECU for the provision of systems to support the digitising of the cadastral maps and the integration with the property sheet records at the District Land Offices. The TAKAROS conceptional design was developed, see Figure 1. a Tender document for the system was issued in early 1995 and the implementation of the TAKAROS system is now going on. It is expected to be fully operational nationwide in 1998.
The integration of Property Sheet management system and Budapest Digital Cadastral Mapping management system, Budapest Land Registry.
The integration of the two parallel developed systems is compulsory,due to the Hungarian unified Land Registration System and the integrated system has to work in computer environment.The datas of property sheets and Budapest cadastral maps have been loaded into the similar ORACLE database.A software has to be developed for the integration.
A tender document will be issued at the beginning of 1998 and the implementation will start as soon as possible.
National Cadastral Program
The technical and financial documents of the National Cadastral Program have been elaborated focusing on the following items.
The plan for implementation is scheduled, and the budget is approved.
The following activities are associated with the digital cadastral large scale mapping.
LAND OFFICE WIDE AREA NETWORK STRATEGY -TAKARNET
The Hungarian Land Offices (unified land registry) have held all of the Land Register and Cadastral Mapping information in analogue form and made it available to local users who make enquiries,request copies of documents and maps and apply for updating information associated with land and real properties.Now the information is being computerized it is becoming possible to access the information electronically from remote sites by connecting all of the Land Offices in a Wide Area Network. This will facilitate:
The concept for Land Office WAN has been elaborated by a consultancy, carried out during 1996 and it has been named TAKARNET.
TAKARNET Concepts
The adopted strategy is:
Nodes and Transport Mechanism
Takarnet can be visualised as a set of nodes, (Land Offices and superior authorities) connected to a "cloud" representing the transport mechanism of the network.See the figure below. Users at a node( or those from outside that are granted access) don't need to know how the mechanism in the "cloud" works, they simply log-on-to TAKARNET and make their transactions through a simple interface which guides them through query,request for copies of information,or filing applications.In other words, users can see all of the Land Office databases,as a single virtual database on a single computer system in the next office.
Overview of the TAKARNET
Implementation Phases of TAKARNET
There are three phases in the implementation of TAKARNET.
Phase I 1997-1998 Limited capacity of network, single External Access Point,limited number of functions for external users.
Phase II 1999-2000 Increased capacity of network,six External Regional Access Points Increased number of functions for external users more accesses to cadastral maps
Phase III 2001-2005 Full capacity of network, twenty External(County)Access Points. All appropriate functions available to users
FINANCING OF THE COMPUTERIZATION PROJECT
The financing of the "Computerization of the Hungarian Land Registration" project has been based on foreign funds(support by PHARE and others) and Hungarian Government funding. The PHARE financial support began in 1992 together with the Govenment funding.
Phare or other foreign Funds ECU 1992-1997 17 million /USD 15 million/
Hungarian Government Funds HUF 1992-1997 2.1 billion / USD 11 million/
In addition to the Phare funding till 1997, another ECU 3,5 million /USD 3 million/ has been provided for other projects and the Hungarian Government provides HUF 1,5 billion /USD 7,5 million/ during the next five years for supporting the modernization of the Unified Land Registration.
Financing of the National Cadastral Program
The financing of the National Cadastral Program is based on Commercial Bank loans and the refund is guaranteed by the Hungarian Government.
Funds provided in 1998 HUF 2,4 billion (USD 10,2 million)
Funs provided 1999-2002 HUF 6,6 billion (USD 30,3 million)
A contract has been signed with banks and thr program begins in early 1998.
Hardware and technical equipment provided during the Computerization Project 1992-1997
Servers,Workstations,PC 2700
Plotters 110
Printers 1500
Digitalizers 110
CONCLUSIONS
During the implementation of the "Computerization of the Hungarian Land Registration" project we experienced and learned a lot. Some of the lessons which can be useful to countries in economical and political transition,working on the modernization of their national land registration system are detailed below.