European Property Rights and Wrongs - Diana Wallis MEP

puted, perhaps leading to the loss of connection to amenities; zones are applied to
the property perhaps leading to the property being built without valid permission;
or a property purports to be sold free from encumbrance but is in fact subject to a
developer’s mortgage. All these examples could be solved by enquiry with a properly
constituted and administered state land registry. Unfortunately not all state
land registries are at an advanced stage of development may not be easy to access,
or the state may not yet centralize information or keep it up to date centrally.
How do they work?
However Land Registries are more than just a deposit of information, in some
jurisdictions the actual act of registering a right over property in the Register will
create that right. So in some jurisdictions the absence of registration of a right
would mean the right did not exist, even if the purchaser had handed over money,
even moved into the property itself. Most systems fall under either the Register
of deeds model where the fact of the transaction is recorded but no right created
via registration, or the Register of title model where the right is created via registration
and greater precedence is given to registered rights and a greater level of
certainty achieved by reference to the register which the state would “insure” by
compensation to anyone who loses through an error in the Register or its administration.
The second model gives a high degree of certainty but requires a high
degree of administration, infrastructure and state financial guarantee. It is the
view of the European Land Registry (ELRA) project that this high degree of legal
certainty is essential throughout the EU if real property transactions are to be as
safe as possible facilitating the wider aims of the EU.
In jurisdictions with administratively advanced Land Registries it is easy to take
for granted the peace of mind offered by a State guaranteed source of information,
reliable and easy to access. Not all jurisdictions enjoy such an advanced level
of administration, however, and legal certainty of information is hard to come by.
If the purchaser is local or a citizen of the State they will have some local knowledge
about the property or zone or region that might help them steer clear of
trouble, but if the purchaser is from another Member State, they are placed at a
disadvantage without the backup of an accessible Land Registry. The variety of local
sources of information that must be consulted, the lack of a single up-to-date
map to consult, the lack of transparency of money charges over property or the
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