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6 aspects to consider in the Integration of the Registry - Cadastre

Making the Cadastre and the Real Estate Registry work together is currently one of the most interesting challenges in the modernization processes of property rights systems.

The problem is usually the same, even going beyond our Hispanic context. On the one hand, the idealism of believing that it is so easy, then the pessimism of quaternary institutional structures. In the end, the person who loses is the citizen who only wants his transaction to be done quickly and safely. The truth is that there is no magic recipe for this, because although it is a matter of common sense, practice shows us that this is the least common sense among those who participate in the chain of the transaction process.

Humans are short of memory after a button is failing, and it is a pity that the glory of success occupies poets rather than systematizers to be counted with style, without pride but as a simple culture of democratization of knowledge. Sure, others have done it with fewer mistakes, but here I describe some basic aspects of how we did it in a Central American country, with some referring to the declarations of Cadastre 2014, from which the ISO 19152 standard emerged.

1. The definition and construction of the System is vertebral.

The merit of the system is no longer strange, since we live in a time of technological advance and reengineering within the obvious. Of course we are not talking only about the tool, but the complete environment that includes the definition of the business, the related actors, the legal support, the modeling of technical methods, the lifting of processes, the simplification of those that are related to management. territorial and the life cycle of the technological tool.

Without a correct definition of the business model, almost any system fails. Because the tool is only the means.

In our case study, the flow was performed as follows, clarifying that they are not sequential steps but almost in parallel, most of which were performed in a time of two years:

A platform was developed that was ready for Registries, both real estate property and Cadastre, seen as another registry. This is the Unified System of Records (SURE), which after 11 years, continues to operate, after four government transitions -Including a coup d'état-, rotation of qualified human resources, arbitrary decisions and everything that developing countries are used to. It was piloted in a Registry Circumscription with an area of ​​160,000 parcels, currently it operates in 16 of the 24 districts and the main reason why it was not eliminated in a political whim was because it was the working tool of the users in Registry and Cadastre -Since it was created-.

In the design of this system, the registration and cadastre processes were erected in the first instance, and recklessly those that could come in the new legislation.

The domain model for Catastro was the Core Register Domain Model CCDM, which in 2003 was just an abstract after Cadastre 2014 that was literally a poem. Perhaps this was one of the reasons why the System achieved awards and a very favorable opinion at a FIG Workshop in Czechoslovakia.

Land registry ladm

The graph above shows the conformation of Folio Real in Unified System of Registers, with the inclusion of Transactions which is a weakness not modeled in ISO 19152. In its time it did not have those names, since the CCDM was only a proposal; but logic does. The CCDM today is the ISO 19152, known As LADM.

Although the technological tool is the most visible when showing results, this entailed an analysis and systematization of existing processes that have their own history. Complex, because the application of procedures differs from one registrar to another; also because when it comes to automation, what does not work on paper will not work in a mechanized system. And without demeriting, that in some contexts, it is preferable to be a dictator than a conciliator; some say that they were literally forced to shift with a battery of shifts that was not easy to digest.

It was also necessary to do a lot of legislative work in which it was easier to create a new law than to reform the existing one. The Registry depended on the Supreme Court of Justice, the Cadastre of a Secretariat of the Presidency and the National Geographic Institute of a Secretariat of Public Works. It was necessary to create new mechanisms for regularization, to take a simple example, expropriation in urban areas where there is a conflict of antecedents and where people are paying different owners. The law allowed expropriation in the name of the state, in order to create a trust where people continued to pay, received their title deed and the previous owners went to court to fight their matter. Once resolved, the money in the trust will belong to whoever won the judgment.

Although two years did not adjust to do all things, when the new government arrived it was impossible to go back. The tools were machined so that it was almost impossible to do the job without using the system.

2. The change of registration technique Folio Personal to Folio Real

On this there are whole books, confusions and perversions depending on who Defends his position. In the case study, the Folio Real technique already existed in law but was not applied as such, so the main decision was to gradually stop using Folio Personal.

As a general culture, the difference between the two techniques lies in the way of filing documents that support property rights. 

The Personal Folio Technique, maintains the index on the holders, not on the object, so that the identifier of the entry obeys a transaction. Although it is highly questioned, the heritage that our parents inherited from our grandparents owes this technique the legal guarantee, not because it was the best, but because it was applied well by people accustomed to doing things in order, it worked very well following the steps logic of the presentation, annotation in the daily volume, marginalization, control of distribution, confrontation and qualification. The difficulties arose from the fact that to work on a presentation it was necessary to consult background information in other volumes, with which a high volume of daily transactions made the response time extremely slow; without forgetting that the registry balance was impossible to control in cases that did not imply total individualization, the control of homonyms was crazy and cases such as non-individualized urbanizations, pro-indivisions and community of assets occupied a little more than Public Fe. It should also be clarified that Folio real does not obey more modern processes; both misapplied techniques lead to equal errors. Again: if it doesn't work on paper, it doesn't work on the mechanized system, if it didn't work on the old system, it almost certainly won't work on the new one.

Land registry ladm

The Folio Real techniqueOn the contrary, it indexes the properties under unique identifier license plates, in which the liens, owners, improvements, neighbors, and other characteristics of the property refer. This is done in an excerpt way, referring to folios, contrary to Personal Folio where the document was transcribed as it was and the tract is marginalized. In the ISO 19152 standard, the property is the Administrative Unit (BA_unit), and can be operated in Personal Folio or Real Folio. Of course, a property in Folio Real is almost the equivalent of a cadastre plot and the linking process will be facilitated.

3. The standardization of Cadastre processes.

The modernization stage of the Cadastre was not necessarily pleasant, especially because a conflict arose between the technicians of the old guard who had enough useful knowledge with the new ones who knew about technology but were unaware of many legal bases of the cadastre. Right or wrong, we specialized in bugs and the payoff was much higher.

One problem with the Cadastre is that it hopes to remain a specialized island that is very easily outdated, as it is not integrated into the transactional process. Who would not want the land registry tapestry to be respected for all sales, transfer, appraisal, use planning and procedures within the framework of the new roles.

Land registry ladm

It was necessary to make changes and document, because to be honest many things were said by the Ancestral aliens but they were not documented. Sure, these are aspects that are surpassed by many countries, but I only relate it to be honest in our case study, where the Cadastre is still a complex challenge. Among the aspects that I remember best:

Lifting of the topology continues; of the plots and of the goods of public use such as streets, rivers, lagoons, etc. The former were assigned a cadastral key with their respective cadastral file, and public property also had a cadastral key with their administrative folio. This is necessary, since property entries, as they are demembered, require the entire existence of entry areas and exit areas; as well as to control future invasions of registered public property.

Cadastre 2014: Cadastre 2014 will indicate the complete legal status of the territory, including public law and restrictions.

Separation of data by legislative specialization.  The maps before modernization were true works of art, in them, in addition to the plots, were the sites of a legal nature, protected areas, points of geographical interest, risk areas, etc. These were separated into independent maps, making the parcel maps look rather simplistic, but seeking to facilitate digitization and automation of topological processes.

This also generated some conflict, since the Cadastre was like the creator of everything. Although he was totally incapable of making their roles official, in which responsible institutions already existed within their branches. Unifying the National Geographic Institute with the National Cadastre was not a wise step either, not because it cannot be done, but because the environment was not ripe to take the IGN to a role as cartography regulatory body; in those days the concept of IDE was so abstract that it seemed to be taking faculties away from the “Great map maker".

Cadastre 2014: The Manual Cadastre will be a thing of the past.

Separate the update flows from the update ones. By sweeping the parcels and records were raised, once digitized, the link record-map was applied in a mechanized way and later the creation of Geoparcela (Spatial_unit) + application of legal and administrative affectations (Restrictios + Responsibilities + Rights). 

Land registry ladm

The graphic is very particular for massive processes. It does not include the other end of the operation, however it more or less summarizes the logic of the formation of Folio Real with its connection to the Land Registry plots.

Once the File-Map link was created, the Public Hearing was expected, after which the field file was transferred to the cadastral file so that any modification could be made via the cadastral maintenance request. This was left in the condition of being able to be carried out at the request of the interested party, ex officio or at the request of registered users (surveyors or municipal technicians). Right now, the process already has a trust formed, with bases ready for delegation to a private operator that will not only operate the Cadastre but also the Registry and the updating of the System.

The 2014 Cadastre will be highly privatized. The public sector and the private sector will work together.

The forensic chart, now adapted to LADM acronyms, shows how the processes were shaped under a systemic approach, so that the initial steps Just modeling, But could be automated under a continuous operation approach.

Land registry ladm

Cadastre 2014: Cadastral mapping will be part of the past. Long live the modeling !.

As you may have already noticed, I am being simplistic and brief because of the limitations of the patience of readers on the Internet. But many of the things we did were wrong. Ironic, but one of the aspects that was left out was the tax issue, thinking about such legislative separation, prioritizing too much over the legal one. Although regulatory competence in tax matters remained in the hands of no one, we continued it with the municipalities from their legislation, to avoid distorting the methods that the Cadastre had already modeled. Of course, this led the municipal systems to build their own cadastre modules, which until today has been difficult to reconcile. 

The suffering for not including the fiscal still hurts economically; basic principle of technological sustainability: If you don't make money, you will die. Today that it is being transferred to an Operator, the simple statistics of daily consultation show that it could have started generating much more money a long time ago, but at least the conformation of the demand was won.

Linking Property Registration with Cadastre is the easiest step for Make it sustainable... sure, if it were easy. But it's better than wanting to make it sustainable on your own.

The Cadastre 2014 will proceed to recover the costs.

4. The link Registration Registration - Cadastral Parcel.

Mechanized the processes as a maquila, the Registry flow was quite simple:

Scanning, cleaning and indexing of volumes, in order to obtain the digital book as a product, with the implicit tract in mechanization and thus avoid continuing to create books. Except for Powers of Attorney / Sentences and other matters that continued to operate in Personal Folio.

Excerpted from active seats and license plates. With this, there was a kind of "digital folio or real folio in formation", which in itself is a real folio (because of the applied technique), but according to the particular aspirations of Honduran law, and the robustness of the system, a Folio Real must be linked to the Cadastre.

Land registry ladm

On the part of the Cadastre, the massive survey brought printed maps with photo-interpreted delineation or total station files and field files to the cabinet. In the office, geoparcels were digitized, linked and created using mechanized tools at that time with VBA for Microstation Geographics. The graph shows a later step that was actually just an evolution of technology because in 2003 the spatial cartridge was not implemented, but the maps were linked by their centroid under the arc-node scheme, however the entire update process was transactional . Subsequently, migration to spatial database and desktop management with Bentley Map was made. Currently in development a plugin for Qgis.

Cadastre 2014: The separation between maps and records will be abolished.

Once the inputs BA_Unit (Registration in Real Folio) and Spatial_Unit existed, another process in maquila did the work of linking. They made a review from the cadastral file, where the Personal Folio reference had been raised, they compared aspects of location, holders, area, antecedent and other herbs to create the link.

The following image shows the legal reality linked to physical reality. Although it is an example of an urbanized area, the process is not that simple for several reasons. In the best of cases, it was possible to link up to 51% (Urban and Rural Average), the remaining link will be made on transactional demand and through titling processes whose goal in this country is ... particular.

Land registry ladm

The Unified System of Records, once the link has been created, shows the two realities, with alerts of possible irregularity. So a license plate without link to Cadastre only shows the great alert of "Do not be georeferenced according to law“. Also the affectations that restrict the use, domain or occupation of the properties, although these two issues are a pending issue... for another article, because institutional weakness is an issue that we technologists do not always understand.

Land registry ladm

For the bonding process it was necessary -Something late I admit- define automated alert criteria or maintenance mechanism, so as not to interfere with 18 irregular aspects, including:

  • One-to-many relationship between plots and enrollments,
  • Differentiation of rights by extra-registration documents,
  • Difference of areas by apparent invasion of the public area,
  • Differences due to mutation in Register or Cadastre after cadastral sweeping,
  • Background not extracted,
  • Horizontal property,
  • Property proindiviso,
  • Difference of names of owners or duplication of owners,
  • etc., etc., etc.

For this, a technique widely used for the sustainability of technologies was applied: Assign it to whoever hurts the most. When the user sees alerts, he looks for how to solve them; total, it is one of the principles of Registry: advertising.

Everything was very good, until it is linked to Cadastre.

5. Cadastre and Registry data will never be the same.

The linking step for some time "politically attributable" was left to do and to date it is one of the complex challenges in the mandatory nature of the law, that every presentation must require linking to the Cadastral Registry. This aspect is somewhat complex, both for being too permissive but also for being as demanding as the Pope. Below are some guidelines, which are mostly processes to normalize.

The Cadastre and Registration area will never be the same. For this, a tolerance formula was used, which considers the measurement method, the urban / rural condition based on its size, in this case the maximum scale used in previous surveys, as shown in the following image. As a maximum tolerance, 6% was considered and, as you can see, using a formula like this, the area decreases from 6% to 1% as the size of the farm grows.

Land registry ladm

The formula was inserted as a stored procedure in the database, such that it is displayed in the system dynamically. If the documentary area is not within that range, then the system raises an alert for area difference.

It is not the same as a cadastral record than a topographical record.  If I am going to measure the property five times, its coordinates will come out different each time (within a tolerance margin). Which means that if your coordinates are within that margin, it is not necessary to change the cadastral property; for that, the LADM considers the measurement record, Survey_classes, as a relationship between the Source_document and the Spatial_unit.

  • It is not possible to insist that The adjoining protocols they must appear as names of persons; Although the principle says that it must be explicit, we understand that it is when a map must be consulted, but if the map viewer is so clear that it does not occupy a specialty, then, the adjoining ones may be the cadastral keys. It sounds simple, but getting lawyers to understand takes time; what we hope will be resolved with the registration minutes.

It is not possible to start a process, without Certification of measurement professionals, measurement methods, tolerances, file presentation formats and coexistence procedures between the data collected with different precisions. If when measuring a property the need to remediate an entire area is evidenced, because it is poorly raised or because of the difference in method, for that the LADM considers the Point_parcel, with which the Armageddon judgment can be avoided -Which is currently looming-.

The legal background is a referent, it is not infallible. It was necessary to state in the law that the cadastral survey will be made based on the physical situation, and if in case there is a difference between the documentary area and the cadastral area, and the situation of boundaries has not changed, nor is there evidence of claims , nor is it adjacent to public areas, the cadastral area will prevail. How easy it sounds, but to enforce that the existing scriptures must be changed is another story; since by law I must recognize the inscribed right and I cannot declare irregular what I accepted under previous terms, just because my parameters changed.

It is necessary to define Methods of debugging the information that facilitate the establishment of the regularity of the information. If a legal entity is Banco Davivienda, but in the notarial protocols they appear with different names for each branch, a consolidation procedure is required. In the same way, if a property was built in different ways, but it is the same, it does not occupy a merger of properties but a consolidation. But both aspects must be legal.

The biggest challenges will always be The human resource, in this sector usually resistant to change and plating that things need to be done only one way. There is no choice but to reinvent itself and leave safeguards. Rotation for political purposes can even be profitable, although be aware that it will be the biggest threat. To the extent that legal support can be used, outsourcing is a venial sin, as long as more complex private interests are free.

6. By last:

As I said at the beginning, the object of this article does not seek to launch magic recipes. Especially because the institutional reality in each country is extremely complex, not because of technical or legal aspects, but rather because of positions of power and lack of vision of its authorities. However, the example shows that it is possible to do interesting things in third world countries, if moments of glory are used to tie up the irreversible aspects. Other countries have done it with less follies, others have better conditions Institutional They fight By the real integration. 

Property registration is based on common sense. Property rights transactions have existed since man discovered agriculture, and realized that it could create human settlements.

Land registry ladm

The graph shows a passage from our religious literature, using terms that seem to be drawn from an exchange of registered jurisprudence, with paid per diems to the past, in precious metal coins quantified in balance -What a great idea for any official today-. No one doubted the certainty of the property or the value of the right inscribed in the "Open Shuttle“. Of course, if we had wanted to link the cadastre and the registry on that date, we would have the same problems, and the same consultancy work for herb smokers like us.

In the case of Honduras, currently in view of the new version of the System, the modeled processes are almost as important as the aspects not reached, because the business is the same, the environment will change the least, the processes will change. In the world of technological innovation that we live in, between the moment I began to write the article and the date that by chance you came to read it, there is a new boom in technologies offering to solve the Registry-Cadastre problem, and three new consultants offering their services. We must remember that technologies are only an input; the balance between the pressure between the technological supply and the demand for modernization is the standard.

Integrating the Registry and Cadastre is a chapter that must be started. If it is only theorized, and never started, it will be science fiction. Right or wrong, once it starts, it takes more art than science to bring it to life. But the process is so kind, that it hardly occupies a couple of people who have a clear horizon, because the solution to all cases lies in the existing human resources, who are specialists in their own matters: Registry, Land Registry, Land Management, automation , systematization and ... some inspirational marijuana. 🙂

New challenges are coming. The other half of the article is just around the corner.

Golgi Alvarez

Writer, researcher, specialist in Land Management Models. He has participated in the conceptualization and implementation of models such as: National Property Administration System SINAP in Honduras, Management Model of Joint Municipalities in Honduras, Integrated Cadastre-Registry Management Model in Nicaragua, Territory Administration System SAT in Colombia . Editor of the Geofumadas knowledge blog since 2007 and creator of the AulaGEO Academy that includes more than 100 courses on GIS - CAD - BIM - Digital Twins topics.

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2 Comments

  1. I do not know if I can understand the question well, and if they are more than one. I will try.

    An article in the Honduran law says that if there is a difference between the deed and the cadastre, and the boundaries have not changed, and the cadastral information is updated, cadastral information predominates. Therefore the user must change his writing. The writing must adhere to the technical description of the cadastral constancy.

    In the case of inspections, which do not require a cadastral key, such as cases related to litigation, it is not necessary to generate a cadastral key. Simply record the measurement (Survey ISO 19152 record).

    The system is generated in an automated way, analyzing the parcels that touch first, then those that touch with a good of public use, analyzing the ones on the other side. For data migrated to spatial schema, it is done by means of a package in the BD, in the case of data not migrated in Geographics, it does a VBA stored in the server, on the fly. In case there is no survey and no parcel has been identified, but if you have the field data of the adjoining, it can be converted into a plot point, so as not to lose the information raised, nor to conflict because it does not have a measured geometry. But neither generate cadastral constancy of data that are not within the system.

  2. I would like to know how the cadastral keys are elaborated and in the event that the deed of sale has an ideological falsehood, that is, they say that on the North side it borders on a person X and on the East side it borders on a person Y and neither X nor Y have properties bordering the land only has two boundaries that are on the south with a public street and on the west with a neighborhood road.

    Thank you

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