DECLARATION OF THE EUROPEAN LAND REGISTRY ASSOCIATION
WHEREAS:
- The European Union has as one of its essential purposes the constitution and development of a single market that guarantees the free movement of persons, goods, services, capital and data.
- In order to achieve this end, an adequate normative environment is established. Regardless of national institutions and legislation, this normative environment guarantees the correct application of the principle of free market and legal certainty for both citizens and companies.
- The consumer and citizen protection should guide the European and national institutions, adopting the necessary actions to guarantee this end, procuring relevant, accessible and quality legal information.
- The Land Registry, whose main purpose is the legal security of the immovable transactions, as a public institution, is also an effective tool for achieving the aforementioned EU purposes and principles in the field of real estate, as it may be with environmental protection policy, prevention of money laundering and terrorism financing policy, and the digital treatment of the data in the framework of the interconnection of the Land Registries.
THEREFORE:
ELRA, with full respect for the national Land Registry systems, its organization and management, considers as principles inspiring a Land Registry system of legal security, aligned with the EU policies in the field of real estate and that contributes to the achievement of the referred purposes, the following:
- The information provided by the Land Registry on domain, rights in rem or limitations , including those of public nature, should be delivered in relation to each property or right recorded in accordance with the European Land Registry Document, as common template.
- The information contained in the Land Registry should be accurate and based on a previous entry in order to ensure its integrity and the quality of the data. The content of the Land Registry should be organized according to the date of entry to guarantee that the registered rights are properly organised and protected, as well as third parties trusting the content of the published rights and their rank. The person responsible for the registry should make the decisions regarding the access of rights to the Land Registry in accordance with its national law and independently, in order to ensure its impartiality as well as the integrity and coherence of the system, also helping or contributing to the compliance of legislation against money laundering. To guarantee the quality of the data published by the Registry, the person responsible should qualify the content in accordance with its national law.
- The content of the Land Registry should reflect all the rights in rem and limitations that may exist on real estate to guarantee legal certainty and the protection of third parties. The limitations derived from the EU or national policies on the protection of the environment, as well as other limitations derived from other protection programs, may be reflected in the content of the Registry in order to achieve this purpose.
- The Land Registry is the institution in charge of the treatment and issuance of information on rights in rem and limitations on real estate. Any citizen, company or administration that has sufficient interest may obtain the information regarding the description, ownership, charges or limitations of the property or right in rem in accordance with the access schemes defined by the applicable legislation. The Land Registry information system allows to complete the information on real rights with that from other sectoral layers, connecting to associated information regarding burdens and restrictions of normative origin.The information provided by the Land Registry should be accessible through a single, interoperable, secure and quality point in accordance with the European Union standards on data processing in the framework of the European Interoperability Scheme.The viability of the system should be guaranteed by a financing system that allows the achievement, development and maintenance of its objectives.
- The Land Registry is not a mere data file as, by way of registration, it provides of legal effects. It is essential that only the registered rights can be effective against third parties who intervene in the market in good faith, relying on the published information. Each Member State, in accordance with its national law and legal tradition, may provide stronger legal effects to the data entered in the Land Registry in order to facilitate the growth and strengthening of the Single Market with the highest degree of legal certainty.
July 2020