Land Registries & Cadastres

In your country, the Land Registry and the Cadaster are they different institutions?

a) Which are the main duties of the respective organizations?

Northern Ireland does not operate a Cadastral system. Some property taxes are collected by central government (eg Capital Gains). Local Government Property Tax (called rates) are collected by Department of Finance through its Land and Property Services (LPS).

Ordnance Survey Northern Ireland is also a discrete part of the Department of Finance LPS. Their function is the accurate mapping of land and property mainly by aerial photography.

Land Registry Northern Ireland is a further discrete part of Department of Finance LPS. Their function is to maintain a public register of owners. Areas of ownership are mapped based on the Ordnance Survey maps but by reference to maps lodged by the applicants.

b) Which Ministry’s competence do they fall under?

Department of Finance.

c) Could you describe in brief the form of collaboration between the two institutions?

For a brief period from 2016 to 2017 Ordnance Survey and Land Registry were managed as a single agency but as the collaboration between the two was not as extensive as hoped (due to technical issues) this was ended and they are now separately managed. Current collaboration is by ongoing awareness of the mutual areas of business by attendance at monthly management board meetings of LPS and requests from Land Registry for areas to be mapped urgently due to registration demands.