Legal Challenges of Interconnection of Land Registries Alasdair Lewis ELRA President XIII General Assembly Brussels, 10th December 2013 1

•. To facilitate the free movement of capital and people, we • To facilitate the free movement of capital and people, we want to make information regarding the ownership of land in the Member States available to our citizens • One of the best ways of doing this is by providing access to information held by the Land Registries (“Land Registers Interconnection”) • However, in order to achieve this, we need to recognise and overcome some legal challenges XIII General Assembly Brussels, 10th December 2013 2

• Those legal challenges include: Language and terminology Identification of the plot Not every Land Registry is open to public inspection Differences in the technology used by each Land Registry Self-financing of Land Registries Title registration systems vs deeds registration systems XIII General Assembly Brussels, 10th December 2013 3

We should start with what information the citizen wants. This includes: • Where is the land? • Who owns it? • Is there a mortgage? XIII General Assembly Brussels, 10th December 2013 4

Most people will want to search for the land using geographical information, such as: • An address • A map • An aerial photograph XIII General Assembly Brussels, 10th December 2013 5

• The meaning of the terms used So that people are not misled, we need to explain the information (i.e. “metadata”). For example : • The meaning of the terms used • The extent to which the information can be relied upon • How further information and support can be obtained XIII General Assembly Brussels, 10th December 2013 6

•. Although there are many differences, Land • Although there are many differences, Land Registries have enough in common (such as A,B C or A, B, C, D registers) to enable us to present basic information in a standard form. • The objective of the IMOLA Project is to design that standard form or template. • We are not starting with a blank piece of paper as we can draw on the experience of both the European Land Registry Network (ELRN) and EULIS. XIII General Assembly Brussels, 10th December 2013 7

THANK YOU!!!! secretariat@elra.eu 8 XIII General Assembly Brussels, 10th December 2013 8