Ivan Katzarsky, Bulgaria
ABSTRACT
The paper deals with cadastral legislation in Bulgaria, current organizational structure of cadastre and the present state of the urban and the rural cadastre, and the system for registration of real properties. The paper also presents briefly a project for a new organizational structure of the cadastre in Bulgaria, and a conception of the new Law on Cadastre. The project envisages reconstruction of the current system through the establishment of units financed by the central budget - 27 cadastre offices in the bigger cities and a National Center of Cadastre in the capital Sofia.
RESUME
Le rapport traite de la reglementation, relative au cadastre en Bulgarie, de l’organisation des structures et de la situation actuelle du cadastre des agglomerations et des territoires non urbanises. Une nouvelle organisation des structures cadastrales en Bulgarie est presentee, ainsi que la conception d’une nouvelle loi du cadastre. Le projet prevoit la transformation du systeme actuel, par la creation de 27 nouvelles unites, financees par l’Etat, nommees "Services du cadastre" et d’un Centre National, dont le siege social est a Sofia.
ZUSAMMENFASSUNG
Der Vortrag behandelt die Gesetzgebung in Bulgarien auf dem Gebiet des Katasters, die im Moment wirkende Organisationsstruktur und den jetzigen Stand des Katasters für Siedlungen und für Territorien, die ausser der Siedlungsgrenzen liegen. Es sind auch Projekt für neue Organisationsstruktur des Katasters in Bulgarien und Konzept für neues Katastergesetz vorgestellt. Das Projekt sieht eine Re-Organisation des im Moment wirkenden Katastersystems vor, die in Schaffung von neuen, vom Staat finanzierten Struktureinheiten besteht - 27 Katasterämter in den Grossstädten und Nationalzentrum für Kataster in der Hauptstadt Sofia.
INTRODUCTION
Bulgaria’s territory is 111 thousand sq. km with 57 % of agricultural land, and 76 % of the latter - arable land. The country is divided administratively into 9 districts (including the separate district of the Capital Sofia) of 258 municipalities. The population of the country (8.5 million) inhabits more than 5 thousand settlements occupying 4 % of the country’s territory.
The first cadastral maps for town planning being worked out in 1881. This took place only three years after the end of the Russian-Turkish War (1877-1878) which partly liberated the nation from the Turks.
The Cadastre in Bulgaria is designed to capture, process, store and make available immovable property data for settlements, farm land and forestry, i.e. for the whole territory of the country. As a nation-wide activity for providing the basic immovable property information, the Cadastre lies at the foundations of: Taxation, Legal security of immovable property ownership, Regional planning, Environment, etc.
The cadastre is envisaged to be developed as a unified system putting all cadastral activities in settlements, farm land, forestry, etc. throughout the territory of the country upon a common methodology and under a common supervision and control. The cadastre shall be funded by the central budget.
All services carried out by the cadastral offices, shall be paid by customers, including the cadastral information. In some cases, a preferential or free of charge use of cadastral information shall be provided. All fees shall be remitted to the central budget or to a specialized Cadastre Fund. Thereby the cadastre shall secure its partial self-support trended towards gradually achieving full support. The returns of the cadastre shall be open in their form however supplemented by hidden returns due to the contribution of cadastre to:
Based on cadastral data which shall be the basic and most necessary data on immovable properties, institutions and local authorities may establish specialized information systems by adding specific data. In time, with the accumulation of sufficient pool of information and through providing the necessary technical conditions, a large scale geographic information can be set up.
In terms of organisation, the basic units of the cadastral system are envisaged to carry on evolving as government cadastral offices. Privatizing them is not expected.
CURRENT ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE OF CADASTRE
Corresponding to the current legislation the organisational structure now comprises managerial and production units.
Managerial Units
The Main Department of Cadastre and Geodesy at the Ministry of Regional Development and Construction.
Regional Offices of Cadastre, Survey and Immovable Property Registration. These are 28 local administrative divisions of the which are situated in the bigger cities and thus are evenly distributed throughout the territory of the country.
Production Units
Territorial Cadastral Companies - 27 in number, located in the same cities where the regional offices of cadastre, survey and immovable property registration are. The companies were created in the early 1980s to implement the Law on the Unified Cadastre of 1979. They are equipped with devices for survey activities, digitizes, computers and software. The latter two however have not the necessary capacity to process the amount of information needed.
The National Center of Cadastre in Sofia. Apart from the equipment shared throughout the territorial cadastral companies, the National Center of Cadastre also has photogrammetric equipment.
The Sofa Cadastre Company. The Company carries out the cadastral and the survey activities, as well as the major bulk of technical services on the territory of the Sofia Big Municipality.
CURRENT STATE OF THE URBAN CADASTRE
The settlements have been the most active areas of cadastre in its history so far. Since the end of the last century, cadastral maps have been produced for them, which, in accordance to former attitudes have had a topographic format. They contain basic physical characteristics and other data about immovable properties referring to boundaries, fences, type and construction of buildings, type of permanent use, infrastructure elements, relief of the terrain, etc. In the cadastral maps, immovable properties are numbered and registers (inventory lists) are kept in accordance with this numbering. In these registers every property figures with its owner’s name, ownership documents and other data.
It has been common practice so far to use the cadastral maps of settlements mainly as a basis for detailed city planning and construction, as well for conveyance of property rights under a personal registration system.
All settlements in Bulgaria (roughly 5000) have cadastral maps and immovable property registers. They are kept at the territorial cadastre companies (27 in number) or at the Municipal Technical Services. The latter make cadastral maps and data available to customers in the process of implementing the settlement plans. A serious disadvantage of the settlements’ cadastral maps is their becoming outdated for lack of systematic updating procedures.
The great information potential of the cadastral maps cannot be utilized to its full capacity because of the restrictions mainly due to their original graphic format. The transition to digitized data and thereby creating a new cadastral information system is a forthcoming task. In order to utilize the existing cadastral maps prior to digitizing, it is necessary to update them through surveying and supplementing the missing elements as well as through finding all changes in ownership. When it should prove impossible for the great amount of changes which would inevitably encumber the originals with too many alterations and supplements, new cadastral maps should be prepared. On the national scale, it is a task of great technical and financial volume which can only be solved in separate stages. The activities of maintaining and updating the cadastral maps and data should be carried out simultaneously.
CURRENT STATE OF THE RURAL CADASTRE
The outlook of Bulgarian farm land is now in the process of profound change as a result of implementing the Law on Agricultural Land Ownership and Land Use (Land Law). The large co-operative land massifs of uncertain ownership are being fragmented into numerous private lots. This brings about through alterations in existing cadastral materials and data about farm land which are now providing basic information in land location.
Certain part of Bulgarian farm land has already been given back to legal owner or their heirs in the order of the Land Law, its Implementation Regulations or other by- or sub-laws. As a result of the concluding restitution procedures the basic land estate data (border point co-ordinates, ownership data, plot size, soil category, etc..) are being produced and need to be adopted by the cadastre. These data are on technical carriers suited for automatic processing. They are the initial data for a farm land cadastre. It is expected that right after the process of land restoration is completed, different kind of conveyances (partition between heirs, sales, etc..) will take place and will lead to dramatic changes in land geometry, ownership, etc.. These changes have to be surveyed and recorded by the cadastre upon the initial basic data, i.e. the cadastral farm land data ought to be constantly kept up-to-date.
A PROJECT FOR A NEW ORGANISATIONAL STRUCTURE OF THE CADASTRE IN BULGARIA
The Need of a New Structure
The changes which occurred in the country call for the revision and restructuring of the cadastre organisation.
According to the Constitution of the Republic of Bulgaria "the right of ownership and inheriting is guaranteed and protected by the law". The state should create a relevant system of guarantees to implement this constitutional provision. Since the cadastre documents immovable properties by their location, borders, size and ownership, it constitutes the cornerstone of such a system, upon which the other basic element - the immovable property register (the land register) shall be established. The government is therefore liable to provide for the cadastre in terms of funding and management, and thus make it a permanently functioning centralized government structure with a system of locally operating units which may also enlist the services of private survey companies.
Twenty seven cadastral offices shall be established in 27 bigger cities as budget-funded divisions, and the National Center of Cadastre in Sofia based on the existing structural units the major part of which are public companies (the Ministry of Regional Development and Construction).
Cadastral Offices
The cadastral offices shall be designed to capture, process and store cadastral data and documentation in order to establish the data base and the information system of cadastre. The cadastral offices and their bureaus shall issue excerpts of cadastral maps and provide services based on the cadastral data and shall provide the survey needed in immovable property transactions. They shall also co-operate with the registration offices (the notaries) over such transactions. Based on the documents created in the process of this cooperation as well as on survey carried out, the cadastral offices shall maintain updated cadastral information on immovable estate. In cases when initial cadastral data ought to be collected, survey and other supplementary work shall be assigned to specialized survey companies and licensed individuals and shall be controlled and approved by the cadastral offices.
Bureaus of the Cadastral Offices
To bring services closer to consumers of cadastral information and reduce cost, cadastral offices shall establish their bureaus in cities with regional courts and the respective notarial activities. In terms of service functions the bureaus shall be equivalent to the cadastral offices. The cadastral offices and the bureaus shall be located in 67 towns in total (27 offices and 40 bureaus).
Financing the Cadastral Offices
The newly established divisions as described above shall be financed by the central budget. They are not meant to be privatized.
Apart from inheriting the property of the old production companies, the cadastral offices shall need to be gradually re-equipped with up-graded computer systems and with other kind of equipment. To this end, additional budget funding shall be needed.
It should also be taken into consideration that the cadastral offices and the National Center of Cadastre shall provide all the services (inquiries, issuance of drafts, survey, etc.) for reasonable fees, comprising the cost together with a share of the initial information price, that is, they shall at least partly restore the budget funds previously spent (through a special Cadastre Fund).
Management of the Cadastre
The cadastre shall be managed by the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works through its Main Department of Cadastre and Geodesy. The Department shall secure the proper conditions for running the cadastre nation wide, and for setting up and maintaining its information system. In the field of cadastre, the Main Department of Cadastre and Geodesy shall:
The Cadastral Offices shall:
The National Center of Cadastre shall:
CADASTRAL LEGISLATION
Political and mainly military events foiled the implementation of two cadastre laws in 1880 and 1908. Another important reason for this failure was the insufficiency both of funds and of qualified specialists in the young Bulgarian state.
In 1941, The Law on Cadastre and Land Consolidation came into force and started being implemented. It covered predominantly farming land. Based on it, cadastral maps at scale of 1:2000 were prepared for some parts of this land. The Law was rescinded in 1951.
In 1979, The Law on the Unified Cadastre of the Republic of Bulgaria was enforced. In the process of its implementation, together with a number of positive features, the large volume of data requirements appeared to be a fault. As another flaw, a certain commitment to the old social system can clearly be seen now. The existing legislation cannot meet the new demands, and therefore a new Law on Cadastre is currently in the process of elaboration.
THE CURRENT LAW ON CADASTRE
The Law, which is in force at the moment, is the one adopted in 1979 - the Law on Unified Cadastre of the Republic of Bulgaria. It has been drawn in accordance with the already abolished 1971 Constitution of Bulgaria, and reflects its basic principles regarding the right of ownership over immovable property: The land as means for production is either state or co-operative property, and the citizens are allowed to own only property for satisfying their personal needs within certain limits, defined by law. This basic principle is the reason for the major imperfections of the Law on Unified Cadastre.
The arrangement of the ownership relations in The Constitution of Bulgaria from 1991: The right of private property, the separation of the municipal and state property and equality guaranteed for all forms of ownership in the country is now enforcing the drafting of a new Law on Cadastre.
THE CONCEPT FOR THE NEW LAW ON CADASTRE
The Basic Idea
The basic idea of the Bill on Cadastre of the Republic of Bulgaria, is that the cadastre serves as a common, mostly technical, basis for the legal security for the public regarding the immovable property at the lowest possible expenses. The data necessary for accomplishing this function of the cadastre are of essential importance also when solving the specific tasks of taxation, regional development and land consolidation, investment studies, land use, environment protection, etc.
In order to meet the requirements for these functions, the cadastre must :
The cadastre must operate with a minimum of data for the properties - the so-called main cadastral data by the Law on Cadastre. The experience from applying the current Law on Unified Cadastre showed, that a considerable number of the kinds of objects and the data about them had a negative impact on the financial and resource provision, the organization and the management of the cadastre. If the data of the cadastre are less than these in the current law, and are reduced to the most commonly used, the activity of the specialized cadastral units will be managed better and be more effective, more pragmatic and as a result - more profitable. The latter circumstance is important to the functioning of the cadastre in the conditions of a market economy and is based on the refunding by the users of the price for using the cadastral information and other services.
In the draft of the new Law on Cadastre the following main cadastral data are foreseen:
The Cadastral Information System
The Cadastral Information System is destined for:
The cadastre should be a basis and a linking medium for specialized information systems for the needs of different institutions and the local administration, whenever they use cadastral data. The draft provides that the ministries, the other institutions and the municipalities are authorized to organize the collection of specific data about the region, different from the main cadastral data, and depending on their tasks to create specialized maps, registers and information systems for their own use.
The state should have absolute authority to generate and determine the way of use of the main cadastral data.
The cadastre should cover entirely and uniformly the territory of the country. The cadastral data about the properties should be collected, stored, updated and supplied for use observing standard organizational and technical rules, and be under unified control for the entire territory. The cadastre is to be unified in terms of information and organization, to cover the entire territory of the country, without being divided in terms of activities and information between different institutions and funds.
The cadastre should be organized as a single structure with a central and regional units, and also it should be possible to use the services of specialized companies for the carrying out of activities, defined by the Law. This comes from the necessity that the cadastre should cover the territory of the country entirely and uniformly. The central unit of the cadastre will carry out unifying functions by sub-laws, methodology, planning, control, information system, etc.
The staff of the central unit and the regional units - cadastral offices, should be stable and permanent, independent of political situation and private interests. A possibility is provided for the cadastral offices to open their own branches (bureaus) in settlements, different from their seat. These bureaus aim at bringing closer to the public that part of the activities of the offices, which is related to supplying cadastral information and other services.
The administration of the cadastre should be a separate juridical person within the structure of the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works with its own budget. The administrative functions for approving the cadastral map, the registers and the execution of the necessary administrative control should be within the competence of the heads of the cadastral offices.
Such a decision in particular would create predisposition for effective court control on the part of the county courts over the acts of these offices, in contrast to the expensive current control system - according to the current law on cadastre, the Minister of Regional Development and Public Works is responsible for his acts beaver the Supreme Court.
The establishing of the cadastre is to be financed by the state budget, and the maintenance of the cadastre is to be self-financed. In the draft is foreseen that all activities, related to generating, processing and storing of the main data in the cadastral map, the registers and the cadastral information system are to be financed by the state budget. It is foreseen also that the activities on maintenance and updating the main data in the cadastral map, the registers and the cadastral information system are to be financed by refunding from users of these data and services and thus and partially support the state budget.
The Cadastre Fund
It is suggested to establish Cadastre Fund in order to store and use the means from the payment of services, performed by the units of the cadastre, as well as refunding from fees and other sources.
CONTENTS OF THE LAW
The new Law on Cadastre consists of 46 articles and 13 paragraphs. It is structured in 8 chapters as follows:
Chapter 1. General provisions.
Chapter 2. Specialized maps, registers and information systems and additional cadastral data.
Chapter 3. Cadastral institutions.
Chapter 4. Drawing up the cadastral map and starting the registers.
Chapter 5. Maintenance of the cadastral map and the registers.
Chapter 6. Provision of cadastral data.
Chapter 7. Financing of the cadastre.
Chapter 8. Administrative and penalty provisions and refunding of damages.
AUTHOR’S ADDRESS:
Dr Ivan Katzarsky
Head of Main Department of Cadastre and Geodesy
Ministry of Regional Development and Republic Works
17-19 Kiril I Metodi Street
BG-1202 Sofia, Bulgaria
Tel: +359-2-987 6260 or 83 841/ext.334
Fax: +359-2-987 2517 or 987 4888
Tel/Fax: +359-2-981 6018
Dr IVAN KATZARSKY
Honorary Member of FIG
Head of Main Department of Cadastre and Geodesy at the Ministry
of Regional Development and Public Works, Bulgaria
Experience
Theoretical and practical work in large-scale mapping, digital terrain models, aerial triangulation, analytical and close-range photogrammetry for cadastre, land reform, road designing, monitoring of landslides, volume determination, open mines. Supervision of surveying works for construction of roads and engineering structures.
Coordination of aerial photography, production and research in photogrammetry.
Development of technologies and preparation of technical specifications.
Management and control on cadastre, geodesy, surveying, photogrammetry, remote sensing and cartography activities.
Teaching in surveying and photogrammetry. Over 200 publications in Bulgaria and abroad.
International and Social Activity
United Nations Expert in Photogrammetry, Survey of India, UNDP Training and Pilot Map Production Center, Hyderabad (1971-73).
Secretary General (1982-84) and Vice President (1985-87) of FIG.
Second Vice President (1988-92) of ISPRS.
Participation in international projects and events.
Member of the Union of Scientists in Bulgaria.
Member of the Managing Board of the Union of Surveyors and Land Managers in Bulgaria.