4.1 The Computerisation of the Land Offices Project

Introduction and aims of the project

The Ministry of Agriculture is currently midway through the enactment of a comprehensive modernisation programme of the Land Registration network, largely financed by the EU PHARE programme, but including components funded from other sources. The Ministry identified the computerisation of the land offices as a priority and formulated an initial conceptual plan within the Ministry which was to be subsequently elaborated. This was formally adopted as the EU PHARE Computerisation of Land Offices Project in March 1992, and a Technical Assistance Team and a Ministry of Agriculture Project Manager appointed. The conceptual plan of the Ministry called for the progressive computerisation of the legal and administrative records (Property Sheets) and Cadastral Maps, with initial priority to be given to the text based land registration records. The original plan was purely concerned with the technical aspects of supporting the computerisation. However, the demands of supporting the economic transition, the enactment of the compensation programme, the and the increasing reliance upon geographic information by other organisations have required the Ministry to develop a more comprehensive plan for the Land Registration Sector. The Development Plan for the Land Registration Sector calls for the following activities

The creation of the Land Compensation programme.
This has been achieved through the passing of the required legislation, the creation of Compensation Offices and the involvement of the District and County Land Offices. It has been managed locally and funded by the Hungarian Government through the Ministry of Agriculture. Two million new property units have been created and are awaiting entry into the Land Register. This information is available in digital form.

The provision of systems for property sheet management at the District Land Offices.
PHARE has provided a total of 2.96 million ECU for the provision of PC based LAN database management systems at the District Land Offices throughout the country. This was procured in two stages during 1992 and 19993. By August 1995, all of the page one (property description) and 38% of the page two and three (ownership and financial data) have been loaded. These systems use Hungarian developed software which uses a nonstandard DBMS tool (Dataflex).

The provision of systems for management and updating of cadastral maps, the assimilation of the compensation data and their integration with the property sheet records at the District Land Offices.
PHARE has budgeted a total of 4.35 million ECU for the provision of systems to support the digitising of the cadastral maps, the loading of the compensation data, and the integration with the property sheet records at the District Land Offices. The Ministry has installed cabling systems within the land offices; the earlier PC based LAN systems will be incorporated into the new unified system and the result will be a single integrated environment supporting the required workflow management, and the management of all control point records, survey records, property sheet management and basic cadastral map management, as well as a unified application registration system. This procurement is the subject of this Tender.

The provision of systems for providing land information management at the County Land Offices.
The County Land offices are to be developed as regional information centres providing technical and administrative support to the District land Offices, but also supporting new products and services, involving the supply and update of structured data sets, the incorporation and supply of thematic data, agricultural reporting units (NUTS), agrostatistics, land use and land protection. The detailed design work for the User Requirements is ongoing, and the Tender will be issued during 1996.

Support for associated technical, legal, and institutional issues.
This includes such issues as data standards (content, transfer method, updating); ownership and copyright, product development and marketing, cost recovery, valuation and the Title industry, institutional reform , and development of a Management Information System for the Land Office network. Work here is ongoing, and is largely composed of consultancy and technical assistance.

Budapest Land Offices
Due to the scale of the land registration problem in Budapest, the development of a backlog in processing land registration applications of 400,000, and the explosion in the conveyancing activity in Budapest, this is being treated as a separate project. The Ministry of Agriculture has moved the offices to a purposefully renovated building, installed a high performance network and introduced temporary IT systems to help reduce the backlog. A PHARE Tender for 500,000 ECU has been issued to provide a property sheet management system and full workflow management. This is ongoing.

Project Achievements (until August 1995)

The following section summarises the achievements of the first three years of the Land Registration project. It is necessarily brief.
The 92-93 Long Term Technical Assistance was provided by FISIA and by Know Edge. The 93-95 Long Term Work Programme has been carried out by Know Edge operating within a Long Term Framework Contract in partnership with AGRAR and SATEC. A new Direct Agreement contract was concluded with Know Edge from the 6th May 1995 for a period of 18 months.

Upon completion of the 1993-95 work programme, the detailed conceptual design work for a solution involving the countrywide network of District and County Land Offices will have been completed. PC systems have been installed in all 115 District Land Offices and some 6.5 million properties (basic descriptive land registration data) have been loaded. Approximately 38% of the total land registration data (ownership and financial data) has been loaded. A number of short term consultancies have been carried out and sector reviews of the first phases of the computerisation, cadastral mapping requirements, and role of the County Land Offices have been completed. The countrywide user requirements analysis and Tender preparation for the integration of the land administrative and legal records with the cadastral map management has been completed.

Stage One (march 1992- august 1993)

• Installation of PC LAN equipment and CDPRS at the 115 District Land Office
  The PC based LAN systems were installed at all of the 115 District Land Offices and equipped with the FOMI developed CDPRS (Complex Decentralised Property Registration System) database management software for the management of the page 1, page 2 and page 3 data. The installation took place in two phases; phase 1 involved the installation of Olivetti systems at 53 Land Offices in September 1992, and phase II involved the installation at the remaining Land Office, plus education centres in September 1993. The page one data was ported from the earlier centralised FOMI system, and a start was made on the local loading of the page two and three data.
• Budapest Land Offices Consultancy
  A comprehensive survey of the needs of the Budapest District Land Offices was carried out and an Information Systems/Information Technology strategy developed for future enactment.

• New Land Law
  A new law supporting the holding of property ownership data in computer readable form was passed
  
• Installation of the IKTATÓ application registration software
  The IKTATÓ software developed by FOMI was reviewed and then installed at all 115 District Land Offices to record new and pending applications.
• Surveying and Mapping Strategy
  A strategic study, of the cadastral mapping requirements of Hungary was carried out, which endorsed the Ministry approach and also recommended the establishment of a National Land Agency, and supported the progressive computerisation of the cadastral maps, where a definite user need could be identified.
• Studies
  A number of other studies were carried out concerned with the role of the County Land Offices; a review of the impact of the introduction of the PC LAN systems and CDPRS software; a strategy for standards development, and a review of the compensation data situation.
• Design of solution for District Land Offices
  The TAKAROS conceptual design was developed which presented an Information Systems Strategy for the network of District and County Land Offices. This was subject to a comprehensive review and adopted by the Ministry
• Tender issued for Budapest
  The Information Systems Strategy for Budapest was finalised and a Tender document prepared, reviewed and subsequently issued on the 15th February 1995.
• Tender issued for the 115 District Land Office
  A Tender document for the TAKAROS system was prepared, reviewed, and subsequent Tender issued for the 115 issued on the 20th March 1995. The scope of this Tender was confined to the District Land Offices.
• Embryonic Management Information System
  An embryonic management information system was installed to monitor the loading of property sheet data, and provide statistical information concerning the compensation data and the status of cadastral maps.
• Communications
  Regular communications were supported through a programme of seminars, study tours (Holland, UK, Austria) and a project newsletter. Information concerning data loading was regularly fed back to the Land Offices.
• Budapest District Land Offices
  The first stage of the Budapest project has been concerned with the necessary infrastructure improvements to support computerisation. This has involved the purposeful adaptation of a new building specifically for the 23 District Land Offices, and the installation of a high performance cabling system within the building which has included the cabling of every room. This project as financed by the Ministry of Agriculture, though supported with PHARE design studies for the cabling system. The backlog problem of Budapest has been investigated, and a plan presented and accepted for OMFB and Ministry funding, which can be put into effect following the installation of the PHARE land registration system.

Expected Benefits of the Project

The direct benefit of this project will be the provision of systems at the District Land Offices and County Land Offices which will support the integration of the property boundary information (cadastral maps) with the property sheet records (legal and administrative data). These systems will also support the loading of the digital compensation data, which is currently stored on a variety of temporary media, and is therefore subject to uncertainty and potential loss or damage. There are also wider benefits to the project and to Hungary.

Specific benefits to the Land registration sector include

• provide safe, secure and up to date management of land registration records.
• support the modernisation process through formulating technically, operationally, legally, and financially sound computerisation strategies.
• support the land compensation programme through inclusion of the new property units at the earliest opportunity.
• provide downstream support for land consolidation (practical. legal;, and operational).
• support the development of national standards, and resolve issues concerned with ownership and copyright of data
• support the data loading and conversion of cadastral map data
• consider the organisational framework best suited to the future needs of Hungary
• examine methods and adopt procedures oriented towards significant cost recovery of operations.
• support the provision of information services and put in place the required infrastructure.
• examine the present legal framework and seek to simplify the accepted practices.
• provide comprehensive education and training.

• support the safe and secure transfer of title
• ensure security of credit against property assets
• enlarge the role of the private sector
• ensure participation of the Local authorities and utilities
• support agricultural land use and classification assessment
• support the economic viability of agriculture
• generate agrostatistics in line with government requirements and consider the legislative requirements
• support the move to EU harmonisation, in terms of compliance with EU directives and the establishment of the required reporting units (NUTS) for demographic, agricultural and other purposes
• achieve locally sustainable solutions.

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