Land Registries & Cadastres

In your country, the Land Registry and the Cadaster are they different institutions?

Yes.

a) Which are the main duties of the respective organizations?

Estonia has separate systems for Land Registry and Land Cadastre.

Land Registry is a legal registry in the structure of court system for real rights in immovable property. An immovable (registered immovable) is a plot of land, an apartment ownership, a right of superficies or a right of superficies in apartments. The owners of immovables and the restricted real rights encumbering the immovables are entered in the land register: mortgages, servitudes, real encumbrances, rights of superficies, rights of pre-emption and notations (preliminary notations, notations concerning the prohibition, objections and notes).

The Estonian Land Cadastre is a technical national register the objective of which is to record and preserve information reflecting the value of land, the natural status of land and the use of land, and to make such information available to the public. The Land Cadastre consists of the cadastral register and maps. The cadastral register contains the following data pertaining to a cadastral parcel: cadastral register number, address, area, intended use, restrictions, data pertaining to boundary points, etc. All data can be visualised as maps (cadastral map, restrictions map, land quality and valuation map).

The Land Board is the authorised processor of the cadastre, i.e. cadastral registrar. The function of the cadastral registrar is to register cadastral parcels, register restrictions and rights of use of land, and collect and process data necessary for the valuation of land.

b) Which Ministry’s competence do they fall under?

Land Registry is coordinated by the Ministry of Justice.
Land Cadastre is operating under the Ministry of Environment.

c) Could you describe in brief the form of collaboration between the two institutions?

Both registers are 100% electronical. These information systems were developed separately but as the land register contains cadastral reference data – number, area, address, intended purpose of land, so the register information can be linked.

Today Estonian registers change information electronically using government information system called X-Road. The cooperation and changing data between two organizations is working well. Lot of changes in cadastral data are made automatically.