Lets start at the beginning
Land tenure (a manner of possession) system is fundamental to, and provides investor and community confidence in:
Development planning, and economic growth and sustainability Social stability through housing and employment Financial security in economic development and property markets, and Natural resource and environmental management and sustainability.
“Ownership also involves a significant element of possession (refer Possessory Title), and…..it can be stated that ownership of the land surface extends just so far in each direction upwards or downwards vertically as the owner is able to bring and retain under their effective control” (Donnelly 1985).
The concept of “the cadastre” is a vital tool used by professionals involved in land and land related dealings. A cadastre is an official register showing details of ownership, boundaries, and value of real property in a district, made for taxation purposes (Collins English Dictionary 1979).
This blog proposes a secure, Digital Cadastral implemented on the Public Block Chain Ledger as the modern version of “the cadastre”
As shown below, all property boundaries, of arbitrary complexity, can be easily represented as a polygon of GPS coordinates. These can also be displayed, on any freely available commercial mapping system, Google maps is used in the example below.
This basic concept, combined with the almost universal availability of GPS, and mapping services within all smart phones, underpins this approach and adds true security to the old insecure world of land registration and transfers. This solution closes the existing vulnerability of "which property" that exists within existing land registry and transfer systems today.
Accuracy in land surveys
The purpose of a land survey is to accurately map and designate land boundaries. Any inaccuracies can lead to potential legal issues down the track. It is generally accepted that a positional accuracy of 20 mm, plus 50 parts per million is required. Typical real-time kinematic GPS system are accurate to around 20 mm horizontally and 30-40 mm vertically. Such systems are regularly deployed within Australian farms today, as part of GPS based farming practice systems. Hence the underpinning technology exists,and due to increased usage will follow a decreasing price and increasing global availability curve in the future; this technology maps into the proposed solution today. It is envisioned that a risk management approach be applied to the required level of accuracy required in any given circumstance, using the ability of the proposed system to tightly align adjacent boundaries, thus removing a significant traditional risk from the "total" system.
The Proposal
Tamper proof, public accessible, immutable set of "golden land records", with full transparency, AML, privacy and inherent provenance.
This proposal for the land registry specialist Public Block Chain Ledger, makes use of GeoJSON (Polygon) and Google Maps, the semantics (real property description) of a title transfer will be codified, and orchestrated within in the Public Block Chain Ledger and related protocols.. GeoJason has been chosen over KML, as the most suitable for modern digital systems.
The solution as secured by a Public Block Chain Ledger, is secure, makes use of global Secure Identities, is freely accessible to all, heralding a new generation of services. Ownership is authenticated via the holding of HSM backed Elliptic Curve key-pairs.
GeoJSon Example
Residential property
{ "type": "Polygon",
"coordinates": [
[[30, 10], [40, 40], [20, 40], [10, 20], [30, 10]] // up to 8 decimal places to give 1 mm accuracy
"accuracy": [20, 40] // 20 mm hor, 40 mm vert
]
},
"properties": {
"guid":"9a3aa3b3-c136-414e-824d-2739317684f4", // global unique property identifier
"propertyId":"<SHA265(polygon values)>",
"type":"Residential",
"lot": "3",
"plan": "RP 54367",
"area":"8,530 SQM", // calculated from polygon
"locality": {"county": "parish":"council"}
"address":{"number":"street": "city":"state":"postcode"}
"encumbences": "value"
}
This polygon can be easily displayed on industry standard mapping solutions such a Google Maps or Google Earth.. The codification of the boundaries of any real estate, supports automatic, conflict and over lap process as part of the block chain ledger, protocols. Some existing government departments make use of KML: files, which can easily be converted to GeoJSon..
Processing
The GeoJSon is processed though a SHA265 transform, which is feed into the ECDSA signatures of the registrar, buyer and seller Block Chain Ledger transaction..
The advantage of including on a specialist Public Block Chain Ledger, is that it can be orchestrated with payment Block Chain Ledgers to produce "legal" finality and "real-time" settlements.
Many of the existing parties which extract value from the manual process today, will simply disappear, producing a more efficient and secure result for all parties.
Barriers
Like most century old processes, this activity has traditionally be a government function, why we are still "walking with dinosaurs" today..
The latest developments in this space is the National Electronic Conveyancing System (NECS) ~ 2010 and still not operational, as this is part of the old world (read technically obsolete, long before it is even launched) and still fundamentally insecure.
Governments world wide have no idea of what "disruption and agility" actually means. NECS has nothing to offer its users, its is solely focused on protecting the incumbents, and the existing high cost and insecure system, i.e much like trying to keep "Taxi Licences" when the users have voted with their wallets, and simply moved to Urber.. The users MUST have a "voice" in these systems..end soapbox
Litmus test, the solution (what ever form), must be totally free to use, for everyone, protect participants privacy, be secure and have above all else provide full transparency and "finality"; and actually deliver a service to its users.
The "unregistered" of the world
Like all of these blogs, the technologies while first world focused, are designed to provide a "social dividend" within the third world populations. The approach outlined within this blog was designed to be applicable for places where currently there are no functioning land registry and deeding services.
Unfortunately, the real challenge (and much of the cost associated) with bringing property rights into the formal sectors lies more in the initial identification of rights holders, the details regarding their rights, restrictions and responsibilities, and ascertaining and documenting the geographical boundaries of the claim.
Our goal is to assist individuals who are left out of the formal property rights system, and that make up an estimated 70-80 percent of the global population.
For those citizens, an iterative first step in identifying and recording their property rights will be to document their rights on an open and accessible platform. This improved land information data is a step toward a more robust system which could eventually become formally recognized and recorded in a national level land registry, where a Public Block Chain Ledger based system will be relevant and useful.
The advantage of including on a specialist Public Block Chain Ledger, is that it can be orchestrated with payment Block Chain Ledgers to produce "legal" finality and "real-time" settlements.
Many of the existing parties which extract value from the manual process today, will simply disappear, producing a more efficient and secure result for all parties.
Barriers
Like most century old processes, this activity has traditionally be a government function, why we are still "walking with dinosaurs" today..
The latest developments in this space is the National Electronic Conveyancing System (NECS) ~ 2010 and still not operational, as this is part of the old world (read technically obsolete, long before it is even launched) and still fundamentally insecure.
Governments world wide have no idea of what "disruption and agility" actually means. NECS has nothing to offer its users, its is solely focused on protecting the incumbents, and the existing high cost and insecure system, i.e much like trying to keep "Taxi Licences" when the users have voted with their wallets, and simply moved to Urber.. The users MUST have a "voice" in these systems..end soapbox
Litmus test, the solution (what ever form), must be totally free to use, for everyone, protect participants privacy, be secure and have above all else provide full transparency and "finality"; and actually deliver a service to its users.
A Free, Public Block Chain Ledger of Land Registries.
Can an immutable Public Block Chain Ledger for Land registrations and transfers change the landscape for robust, scalable, enterprise systems that manage property rights in mature economies, only time will tell.
The "unregistered" of the world
Like all of these blogs, the technologies while first world focused, are designed to provide a "social dividend" within the third world populations. The approach outlined within this blog was designed to be applicable for places where currently there are no functioning land registry and deeding services.
Unfortunately, the real challenge (and much of the cost associated) with bringing property rights into the formal sectors lies more in the initial identification of rights holders, the details regarding their rights, restrictions and responsibilities, and ascertaining and documenting the geographical boundaries of the claim.
Our goal is to assist individuals who are left out of the formal property rights system, and that make up an estimated 70-80 percent of the global population.
For those citizens, an iterative first step in identifying and recording their property rights will be to document their rights on an open and accessible platform. This improved land information data is a step toward a more robust system which could eventually become formally recognized and recorded in a national level land registry, where a Public Block Chain Ledger based system will be relevant and useful.
References
http://www.icsm.gov.au/cadastral/Fundamentals_of_Land_Ownership_Land_Boundaries_and_Surveying.pdf
http://www.necs.gov.au/Land-Registries/default.aspx
http://www.necs.gov.au/ArticleDocuments/NationalBusinessModel-v11_300610.pdf
http://www.icsm.gov.au/cadastral/Fundamentals_of_Land_Ownership_Land_Boundaries_and_Surveying.pdf
http://www.necs.gov.au/Land-Registries/default.aspx
http://www.necs.gov.au/ArticleDocuments/NationalBusinessModel-v11_300610.pdf
Disclaimer The contents of this blog should not be understood to be an offer for sale, accounting, taxation or investment advice but rather as educational information that may or may not meet your specific requirements.
