7. CONCLUSION

The situation of land is changing steadily and at an accelerated rate, because of the rapidly growing world population and the internationalization of economies. Security of land property rights can no longer be guaranteed by the traditional cadastral systems. The performance of traditional cadastral systems is no longer adequate. They can provide neither sufficient and reliable information about the legal situation of a piece of land nor services that are efficient and cost effective.

A new approach to the reliable documentation of rights and restrictions on land has to be introduced. This approach has been discussed by the Working Group 7.1 of FIG's Commission 7, taking into consideration the worldwide social, legal, economic, and technical developments and the reform initiatives in the domain of the cadastre. The vision of this new approach has been named Cadastre 2014.

Based on the proven principles of traditional cadastral systems, Cadastre 2014 will obey the following rules:

  1. Cadastre 2014 is an institution that inventories and registers all types of rights and restrictions that have an impact within a defined contour of the surface of the earth according to the four principles of traditional cadastral systems; namely, the booking principle, the consent principle, the principle of publicity, and the principle of specialty. The Cadastre 2014 institution makes sure that the limits of the impact of rights and restrictions to land are fixed and registered according to the public and private laws in effect in the respective countries, and that everyone can get reliable information about the legal situation of a piece of land.

  2. Cadastre 2014 is making substantial use of the increase in information technology. Procedures are being adapted to the new possibilities to encourage maximum efficiency yet maintain maximum security. Benchmarking and selecting the best of the new practices will be a challenging task in the domain of modern cadastral systems.

  3. The Cadastre 2014 institution shall be a co-operative between the public and the private sectors. The involvement of the public sector ensures that the system has the necessary continuity. The public sector shall concentrate on supervision. Efficiency and flexibility will be brought into the system by the private sector, which is responsible for carrying out the operational work. This division of work also guarantees that public and private interests in land are kept in balance.

  4. The Cadastre 2014 institution shall have an economical structure that enables it to recover the investment and maintenance costs.