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 number). In Hungary, this system is largely in place, and coupled with the decentralised nature of the Hungarian system, the system provides the large scale basis for the collection and recording of other land related data (land use and classification, land protection) and thus forms a true multipurpose cadastre. The multipurpose nature of the Land Registration System forms a potentially valuable state asset. (note that other European countries, including those from Western Europe are trying to move towards this kind of system). The conclusion from this is that the form of Land Registration system as practised in Hungary is fundamentally sound and should be retained.

Land registration in Hungary is facing problems at the present time, but not insurmountable problems. The Key Issues that arise can be considered to be naturally composed of two groups:

• issues principally concerned with the Land Registration Sector itself, and
• issues principally concerned with supporting the market transition process.

The support for the market reform process includes the key issues of forming efficient methods for the transfer of real land and property assets; supporting security of credit, the role of the public and private sectors; the role of local authorities; NGO's and utilities; land use and classification; land valuation (urban and rural); the economic viability of agriculture; agrostatistics; environmental protection (monitoring and assessment) and harmonising initiatives with the EU procedures; including the development, definition and usage of spatial reporting units (NUTS). The Ministry must work with other partners, including Ministries, NGOs, local authorities, and national and international organisations in order to resolve these issues.

The Land Registration sector is currently facing challenges from a number of sources:

• The transition to market economy
  The transition, introduced in 1989, has stimulated the land and property sector. It is estimated that as much as 20% (Dale et al, UN ECE Land Administration Guidelines, 1995) of the national GDP comes from the Land & Property and construction sectors of the economy. The transition process has introduced mass privatisation, increased individual home ownership, and placed severe increases on the demands for land registration information.
• The Land Compensation Programme
  A Land Compensation Programme has created 2.1. million new land parcels. The new boundary and legal information has to be assimilated into the land registration records.
• Privatisation The privatisation of state farms, co-operatives and state industry all place demands on land registration records.
• Land Consolidation The Land Compensation Programme has produced over two million new property units, many of which are unviable for agricultural purposes. There will have to be a consolidation programme to create agriculturally viable units.
• Increased Conveyancing The public have significantly increased home ownership through a programme of subsidised purchases, the compensation programme, and increased commercial development. These problems are particularly acute in the large urban centres.
• Establishment of Condominiums (housing associations) The large scale establishment of condominiums, and the resulting change of registration entries has produced a situation where Land Offices can suddenly receive a request for the wholesale transfer of assets, which may involve several hundreds or even thousands of property units.
• Demand for New Products and Services The Local Authorities, Utility companies, environmental agencies all require large scale base maps (digital) to support their management information systems. The digitising of the large scale cadastral maps (on demand) would satisfy this requirements, but there has to be agreement on standards, data content, data structure, data transfer methods, updating, copyright, ownership and usage. In the absence of agreement, these users will simply carry out their own programmes.

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