Estonian Digital Land Register 2009

Estonian Digital Land Register 2009

The Land Register in Estonia is maintained by Land Registry departments of local law courts. Ownership relations and limited real rights established on the registered immovable for the benefit of third persons need to be entered in the Land Register. Estonian Land Register is a title based electronic register. The right has to be entered in the land register in order to be valid. The entries made in the land register are presumed correct. All the land of Estonia has entered into land register (except state-owned land) and the whole land register is accessible online and all register parts are valid electronically. The owner does not need a paper certificate to prove the right to the immovable. Land Register archive contains applications and documents submitted on the immovable and these documents are mostly on paper. About 75 % of all documents are produced by notaries. Since 2007 June all notarial applications (deeds) are registered automatically in digital form in Land Register information system. The conveyancing procedure in Estonia. If owner wants to sell ones land or real property he or she has to go to the notary 1. Notary performs necessary inquiries and prepares the contract (deed). Information from other state registers, also from land register, is possible to import directly into contracts. 2. Notary sends digitally signed (qualified digital signature) contract and application electronically to land register where it is automatically registered. 3. Registrar receives electronic application Structured data (participants, objects, state fee ) Digitally signed contract 4. Registrar checks the application, that all the necessary information is presented. 5. Assistant judge makes an entry to land register. 6. Registrar sends the decision to notary and participants.

XML structured data E-notary contract + structured data Land register At the moment there are no applications on paper between notary and land register. And registrars do not have to retype information. Previously the information was typed, printed out, sent on paper and retyped. Everyone who needs land register information can see new entries without delay after assistant judge has signed them. According to law Estonia has a system of a strong land register which means everyone can rely on land register information. Estonian registers change information electronically using government information system called X- Road. http://www.cyber.ee/english/services/egovernment/xroad.html. In addition to connection with notaries system land register has electronic online data interchange with registers like land cadastre, business register, population register. Future plans State objective in connection with Land Register is to organize Land Registry departments work in more effective way, ensure that all data is protected safely and enable create new comfortable electronic services for customers. To achieve these objectives we are planning new developments. Year 2010 At the moment we are working on project to digitalize whole land register archive. All paper documents will be scanned, digitally signed (with Estonian ID Card. More about ID Card http://www.id.ee/11019 ) and stamped. Year 2011

Next project we are planning is to digitally sign (with Estonian ID Card) and stamp all database records to preserve integrity. That helps to ensure nobody could create, delete or modify records without a trace. More information about Estonian Land Register can be found: http://epractice.eu/files/documents/cases/1791-1220620769.pdf http://epractice.eu/en/cases/kris

Consultation Offer

Consultation regarding Development of Land Register Information Systems The Land Register has been created and developed since the year 1991. In a short period of time, we have passed through every phase that is common for the creation and development of a major public register: 1. Legislative drafting 2. Creation of a paper registers 3. Creation of an electronic information system and digitalization of the paper register 4. Creation of a fully electronic register and information system with a legal meaning 5. Digitalisation of the procedural process (e-conveyancing) During our journey, we have learned some painful lessons and achieved excellent results especially in development of information technology solutions. We have co-operated with the private sector and developed software from the scratch ourselves therefore we can assess the advantages and disadvantages of both alternatives. Development of the Land Register information system is illustrated by the following figure:

In the last years we have engaged in optimization of procedural processes and improvement of security. The majority of real property transactions are notarised in Estonia as required by law. Therefore the optimization of the procedural process had to include updating of the information systems of notaries. The result was the E-notary information system which was put into operation in 2006. By the time being, the procedural process of real property transactions between Notaries and the Land Register is 100% electronic. It was achieved by means of informationn technology and by good co-operation between different parties. The E-notary software was developed 100% by the Centre of Registers and Information Systems.

The Centre of Registers and Information Systems, which is responsible for administration and development of the IT solutions of the Ministry of Justice (both software and hardware), is willing to share its respective experience with others. We have multiple experiences in digitalisation of paper registers, and in development of inquiry systems and procedural software. The IT success of the Ministry of Justice was confirmed also by the auditors of the National Audit Office of Estonia in their latest audit on the use of IT solutions by the public sector (www.riigikontroll.ee ) 2007. In addition, our solutions have been acknowledged in Estonia as well as in Europe. We are also ready to provide consultation regarding the success and failure stories of development and administration of the IT solutions of the respective sector.

This consultation package comprises: Introduction to the administration and development of the procedural software of the Land Register. Introduction to the administration and development of the inquiry systems of the Land Register. Introduction to the process of development of the Land Register information systems. Electronic data exchange between the Land Register and other systems. Introduction to E-notary procedural software for notaries. Details of electronic data exchange between E-notary and the Land Register information systems. Consultation with developers, administrators and infrastructure specialists and managers. Questions and answers specified. If necessary code samples and schemes of software. If necessary, we can involve Estonian public specialists of other fields or our co-operation partners from the private sector in our consultation process. For example: Introduction to geo-info systems. ID-card and introduction to PKI. Introduction to the procedural processes of the Land Cadastre. Introduction to the Building Register. Introduction to the Company Registration Portal of the Commercial Register and its procedural processes. Introduction to other information systems.