CADASTRAL MODELS IN EU MEMBER STATES

Cadastres are always related to land: they are a creation of man as effect of his relationship with land. The different conditions of the Cadastre in 14 EU Member States, including the former EU Candidate States (that nowadays are also EU members), are shown in this paper. Half of EU countries store cadastral and registration data in the same database. Basically two original models of cadastral system exist in the EU, related with systems of land registration: 1) in the Central European model (beyond the area of the Germanic "Grundbuch") Cadastre emerges as a graphic basis (map) of land registration (Land Registry), so that physical changes must be reflected in the Cadastre and legal changes in the Land Registry, by maintaining a perfect parallelism; 2) in the Latin model the Cadastre emerges only as a taxation instrument, useful for collecting land taxes. The Land Cadastre in the EU is almost always parcel-based and contains an urban Cadastre (of buildings) only in a few countries. Moreover, the European Land Information Service (EULIS) is shown as result of a project carried out by nine partners of eight EU Member States. The knowledge of the cadastral models in EU Member States is a fundamental condition for the harmonisation of Soil Cadastre at EU level as an inventory for environmental, social, economic, legal and taxation purposes.