More than 86% of rural land is unregistered.

More than 86% of rural land is unregistered.

The government is going to invest two million euros in a pilot project aimed at registering the national territory. This project is part of the “forest reform” package of measures and will start in the first phase in ten municipalities - covering a total area of 245,000 hectares. According to the Ministry of Justice, 86.4% of the land in these areas is not registered, even though registration has been compulsory for over ten years.

The initiative will initially cover the municipalities of Caminha, Alfândega da Fé, Pampilhosa da Serra, Góis, Penela, Figueiró dos Vinhos, Pedrógão Grande, Sertã, Proença-a-Nova and Castanheira de Pêra, writes Jornal de Notícias.

According to the publication, each municipality will have a Balcão Único do Prédio (BUPi), which will operate at the registry offices - in Góis it will be at the Finance Office - and where land owners can request their registration free of charge until October 30, 2018.

If the land is already registered, the owner can ask for the land to be geo-referenced, i.e. identified using geographical coordinates with the help of a satellite and GPS system.

Although the project is experimental, it aims to make the land registration procedure compulsory for land sales. If the land has not been registered by the stipulated date, the owner will have 90 days to do so, after contacting the BUPi.

For Anabela Pedroso, Secretary of State for Justice, the project provides citizens with “greater security”, since “an owner's rights are only really protected when their property is registered”. “On the other hand, it allows the state to act more effectively in the knowledge and planning of the territory and the forest,” she said.

Meanwhile, the Simplified Cadastral Information System received, even before it came into force - which happened on November 2 - 80 requests to schedule the georeferencing of 2,948 buildings in six of the ten municipalities that are part of the pilot project, writes Lusa, based on data from the Ministry of Justice.