Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.3935/zpfz.72.12.15
Post-Earthquake Reconstruction and Clouded Title
Hano Ernst
; Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The 2020 earthquakes that struck the City of Zagreb and the areas of Sisačko-moslavačka, Karlovačka, Zagrebačka and Krapinsko-zagorska counties have resulted in damages of approximately 17 billion euro that must be repaired as quickly as possible. The Reconstruction Act envisages various forms of reconstruction the execution of which is dependent on an accurate and complete state of title, irrespective of whether such reconstruction is financed by public or private funds. The current state of the land register presents itself as inadequate, essentially jeopardizing reconstruction, for numerous reasons. The incongruence between the land register and the land cadaster makes it impossible to accurately publish property rights over land because the land registration system is dependent on current cadastral data. Land registration renewal proceedings, in progress today, are belated by decades, making them so much more complex due to continuing urban development and legal transactions that were remained uninterrupted by a dated land record. The socialist era in property law has during its various stages led to quick unrecorded mass transfers in the form of socializing land and creating new property rights over socially owned land that were only partially recorded in the land register, both due to inactivity of the governent and due to proactive measures of preventing registrations under spatial planning, building, and tax regulation that all unnecessarily involved the land register in the system of monitoring the application of public law. In the transitional period characterized by the transformation of social ownership and restitution property law changes were also unrecorded, occurring by way of a myriad of complicated and segmented provisions, while processes that would have resulted in an “orderly“ state of land records, such as expunging social ownership and the unification of land records, determining co-ownership shares for condominiums, linking land registers and deed registers, and renewing land registers, were absent or slow-paced. Concurrently, unrecorded transfers and universal successions were present during this entire period, causing multiple transfers and making it more difficult to determine an unbroken legal chain in transferring ownership.
The starting point of the amended Reconstruction Act—that public financing is the answer to existing clouded title—is incorrect because co-owner participation is necessary for deciding to proceed with reconstruction, for initiating requisite proceedings, and for participating in the reconstruction by concluding and satisfying construction or reconstruction contracts. Even though the Reconstruction Act facilitated decision-making in co-ownership by modifying the requisite majority, the fundamental question of who participates in the majority or minority has remained open, and insufficient thought has been given to the position of other property right holders. This problem also reflects itself on the procedural pane in terms of determining the eligibility of the filing party i.e., its procedural role as party to the proceedings. Even though a determination of ownership is available under the provisions on preliminary issues, in most cases it will not result with a solution due to the incongruence of the land register and the land cadaster, and particularly not in case of unrecorded transactions. Similar problems may arise in litigation and in special correction proceedings, especially in complex cases where unrecorded transfers coincide with universal successions. Land registration renewal, carried out sua sponte, presents itself as the only systemic solution that can bring about reasonably final results grounded in an equitable finding of the court. Even though this solution is not ideal, itself being prone to certain ambiguities and objections, it is currently the only available legal tool for resolving clouded title cases en masse. Alternative legal models grounded in deviations from the principle of public faith of registration have demonstrated a limited application and problems of borderline constitutionality, while models grounded in sequestration are insufficiently developed.
Keywords
earthquake; reconstruction; ownership; land register; public property
Hrčak ID:
280152
URI
Publication date:
1.6.2022.
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