Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
then adapted to the Portuguese cadastre and associate real estate registry “Registo
Predial”. Their approach covered however essentially the 2D reality and needs to
be taken further towards 3D cadastral modelling purposes.
3 Portugal's Property Cadastre
3.1 Historical Aspects and Current Status
The first official step towards the establishment of a national registry of land parcels
in Portugal was taken in 1801. By royal decree, all cosmographers (one who stud-
ies, describes, depicts, and measures the Earth and/or the visible universe, includ-
ing geography and astronomy) of the kingdom were appointed then to be in charge
of the organisation of both a cadastre and a general registry topic of all properties
existing in the kingdom. The fact that those practitioners were the ones in charge of
accomplishing such a task clearly states how aware authorities were in those days
of the great value of a coordinated cadastre. For several reasons, such a registry was
never launched though until 1836, when the national property registry (“Registo
Predial”) actually started being implemented (Silva et al.
2005
). Like in many other
countries across the world, the Portuguese property registry system is based on
the “folio principle”, i.e. each “land parcel” on the ground is related to exactly one
ownership title registered in the land registry. Every land parcel has a unique par-
cel identifier number to which all parcel-relevant information is linked. The term
“property” as such is not used in the Portuguese legislation, though the equivalent
word does exist in Portuguese, “propriedade”, but is more informally used in eve-
ryday language. The official term used, as explained below, is “prédio” (from the
Latin word “prædium”, standing for real estate or legal immovable property unit).
Like other property parcel registries across the world, “Registo Predial” has
been serving in Portugal as the pillar foundation for property transactions and for
securing the legal status of property boundaries. Even though the registration of
properties has been in theory mandatory since the registry was launched, in prac-
tical terms this was not really the case unless any legal transaction over a given
parcel was in fact to be undertaken. In general, however, properties in Portugal are
historically likely to be passed on through generations by simply being inherited.
They would be rarely sold/bought and it was not indeed until roughly the 1980s
that such transactions became more common. As a consequence, many properties
are still omitted from the registry. Authorities are however somewhat in control
of the situation for the national revenue and customs agency (ATA—“Autoridade
Tributária e Aduaneira”) is in charge of up-to-date records for taxation purposes,
the so-called “Matriz Predial”, on the nearly 17 million propertiess in the country.
Like other cadastres across the world, Portugal's cadastre also follows a prop-
erty-based approach. In the Portuguese jurisdiction, a “prédio” can be classified
into one of the three following possible types (Mendes
2003
):
