1.2 KEY ISSUES
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 Ministry has had to carefully consider these issues in formulating its' strategy. The issues
that arise specifically concerned with Land Registration include the modernisation (technical,
financial, procedural) of the Land Registration sector, the assimilation of the results of the
land compensation programme, cadastral map conversion, national standards, ownership
and copyright, cost recovery, land consolidation, legal issues, potential institutional reform
(administration, budgeting, organisational) and education and training. The Ministry is the
executive authority tasked with competence for the above activities.
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,
NGO's, 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 market transition
The market 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.
- Land Consolidation
The Land Compensation Program 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 agriculturallly viable units.
- Privatisation
The privatisation of state farms, co-operatives and state industry all place demands on
land registration records.
- 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 housing associations
The large scale establishment of housing associations, 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.
The Ministry recognised these problems at an early stage and put into effect a
"Computerisation of Land Offices" project, financed by PHARE, with counterpart Government
of Hungary funding. This project is aimed at providing the technical facilities to allow the Land
Offices to computerise the records, and thereby meet these demands for increased
throughput, new products and the assimilation of the new compensation units.
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