PREPARATORY PROJECT FOR REAL PROPERTY REGISTRATION AND CADASTRE PROJECT SUPPORTED BY 
UNITED KINGDOM 
David Sharp”, Sanja Vurin®, Sanja Zekusi¢ ^ 
* Registers of Scotland, Edinburgh, UK - Dave.Sharp@ros.gov.uk 
? Real Property Registration And Cadastre Project, Project Implementation Unit, Berislaviceva 11a, Zagreb, 
Croatia — (sanja.vurin; sanja.zekusic)@zikprojekt.hr 
ISPSR WG VI/3 Workshop 
KEY WORDS: Real Property Registration and Cadastre Project, Department for International Development (DFID), Registers of 
Scotland (ROS), Preparatory project, Technical Assistance (TA), Ministry of Justice, Administration and Local 
Self-Government (MOJ), State Geodetic Administration (SGA) 
ABSTRACT: 
Preparatory projects for the World Bank or similar international financial institutions employ specific kinds of technical cooperation 
and knowledge transfer activities. Such projects aim to help national institutions prepare themselves to conduct projects by assessing 
the existing situation, building the capacity of the involved institutions, training and education of key staff, and by providing help in 
a manner appropriate to the organisation providing the loan or grant. This work includes preparing of the initial documents necessary 
to finalise negotiations with the lending institution and assisting with the start up of the project. 
The Ministry of Justice, Administration and Local Self-Government and the State Geodetic Administration of the Republic of 
Croatia are joint beneficiaries of the World Bank loan, European Commission donation and special government fund for the purpose 
of conducting the Real Property Registration and Cadastre Project, which became effective in February 2003. 
The route and progress towards the current status was not easy and was achieved with the intensive support of the Government of 
United Kingdom, through the Department for International Development, which released grant funding to enable sixteen months of 
expert work which was headed by the Registers of Scotland. Specifics of this preparation project and the lessons learned are 
described in this paper. 
1. INTRODUCTION of the registers, which can properly function only by efficiently 
registering the established real property status in the field, is to 
Overall Status secure the legal property transaction. The long-standing neglect 
of the Cadastre and Land Registry Books, in the period of 
In the 1990's as the ex-Yugoslavia broke up and the Republic common property and the Tax Cadastre, and the significant 
of Croatia became independent a number of reforms were influx of requests for settling the Land Registry Book status has 
initiated in order to abandon the previous socialist regime and increased the already existing mismatch of the Cadastre and 
to move towards a democratic society. The sound foundation Land Registry Book data and most importantly the mismatch of 
for that was the voting of the new Constitution in 1991, which those data with the real status on the ground. The formal 
emphasises entrepreneurship and the free market as the basis of resolution of the problems in the Cadastre and Land Registry 
the economic structure of the Republic of Croatia. Books commenced by passing the Land Registry Act (LRA) 
(1996) and the Law on State Survey and Real Estate Cadastre 
Reaffirmation of the institution of private property as opposed (LSSREC) (1999). However, in spite of efforts invested to date 
to the common property, which was characterised under the it could be said that the status of data in the Land Registry 
socialist period, started by passing new laws among which is Books and Cadastre is in such bad shape that the basic 
the Law on Restitution for the Property Deprived during the provisions of the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia, which 
Yugo-Communist Rule (1992) and the Law on Sale of guarantee the ownership rights and hence the legal security of 
Apartments with Tenancy Rights (1992). Of particular real property ownership, is endangered. 
importance is the Law on Ownership and other Property rights 
(1997), which defines the new legal structure for real estate 2. PREPARATORY DFID PROJECT 
where there is only one kind of ownership (common property is 
abolished) and which stipulates that the right of managing, Background 
using and disposing of common property ‘ex-lege’ is 
transformed to private property. Based on the decision of the Government of the Republic of 
Croatia in May 2000, which supported the activities concerning 
The system of registering real estate and real property rights in the preparation of the World Bank (WB) loan to finance real 
the Republic of Croatia consists of two registers: Cadastre, property registration and cadastre modernization, MOJ and 
where the real property is registered according to its technical SGA began establishing the content of the future loan. 
data and the Land Register (LR) Book, where these data are 
supplemented by the data on real property rights. The purpose 
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