Responsible Agency

1. Which agency/government body/authority is responsible for land registration?

The Land Registrar is responsible for the registration of the (notarial) acts creating or transferring property rights inter vivos in the land register(s).

The 48 Land Registrars are encapsulated in two organisations: the professional organisation—the Royal Federation of Land Registrars of Belgium (Royal Federation of Mortgage Registrars of Belgium)—and the government body—the Administration of Patrimonial Documentation (Department of Finances).

And there is also, of course, the Ship Registrar.

2. If the responsibility for property registration is dealt with by an agency/authority, to which government department is it responsible to?

The Administration of Patrimonial Documentation (Department of Finances)

3. How is the organization managed?

The main actor in land registration is the individual Land Registrar (see I.1.). He/she is not appointed for a specific period of time, but stays on until retirement (it is a fin de carrière position).

4. Describe the organisational framework:

The individual Land Registrar has exclusive competence concerning all the land within his/her territory.

The land registers of the competent Land Registrar are the only  source of (authentic) information: official information (e.g. land register certificates) flows exclusively from the land registers of the competent Land Registrar.

A copy of the land registers is stocked in a central database (called Hypo). This central database is not yet exploited.

5. How is the agency/government body/authority funded?

The individual Land Registrar is self-financing. The excess of income over expenditure is annually deposed in the (federal) Treasury.

6. Are the staff of the agency/government, department/authority civil servants?

The Land Registrar is both a public officer (regarding his core business, i.e. his registration job as such) and a civil servant (see question 19 of the Status questionnaire).

The human ressources management of the office of the Land Registrar is a joint compentence of the Land Registrar and the Administration of Patrimonial Documentation.

7. Who is responsible for cadastral/mapping information? Is it the same organisation or a separate agency/department?

The Cadastre is another branch of the Administration of Patrimonial Documentation.

8. What are the principal functions of the registering department/agency/authority?

On the one hand, the registration of the (notarial) acts creating or transferring property rights inter vivos in the land register(s) and on the other hand, to provide information (e.g. land register certificates) about the entries in the land register(s).

9. What are the key values/principles underpinning registration of title in your system?

The correctness of the registration and the completeness of the information.

10. What registration system of property do you have in your country (title/deed)?

Deed registration.