Simplified procedures for land registration to become general rule
By Natalia Kochiashvili
Friday, November 8
At Thursday's session, the government has approved a package of legislative changes that simplify land registration.
The legislative changes were introduced by the Minister of Justice Tea Tsulukiani at the government meeting.
As the head of the government, Prime Minister Giorgi Gakharia, noted, during the visits of lawmakers and government members to the regions, especially to the villages, it is often found that land registration is one of the most important issues facing the locals.
Under the initiative of the Ministry of Justice, the simplified registration procedure established under the Land Registration Reform, which applies until January 1, 2020, will become a general rule for registration of land ownership and will be valid for a lifetime.
The ministry says that the prolongation of land registration reform, which has begun since 2016, is driven by high interest among citizens towards the reform.
Since the reform was enacted, citizens' appeals have increased 5 times on average, and the rate of land ownership registration has more than tripled. 738,483 applicants have successfully registered land since 2016 which means that the area registered since 2016 is more than three times more than the total registered area since Georgian independence up until 2016.
“Our goal is to register the remaining land over the next three years,” said Justice Minister.
Tsulukiani says that beyond the forest fund and the occupied territories a million and a half hectares of land is unregistered.
According to the agency, registration will continue in two ways: sporadic and systematic.
PM Gakharia announced today that the Ministry of Justice plans to address the problem of unregistered land in the regions for the next 3 years.
“This is vital to our economy because the land is one of the most important resources. We can say with full responsibility today that through further development of sporadic and systematic registration we will fully resolve this issue in the period of the next 3 years,” - said PM.
Up until January 1, 2021, registering the land will not affect the rating scores of families receiving social assistance and benefits. Consequently, these families will receive social assistance and all the benefits they enjoyed before land registration.
Document acquisition and systematization for land registration, and the recognition of property rights of land will be free before 2020 as well. Also, until January 1, 2022, receiving a certificate of inheritance will be free of charge.
