What to know about the Hungarian land offices

The maintenance of the countrywide land registration system and case management concerning land and other real estates are the main duties of the territorially competent district land offices.  In Hungary, there are 5-8 district land offices in each county; since 3 January 2008, in Budapest, three land offices of district level have been working. The district land offices have been keeping and updating the records of land registration data by settlements, and within that, by locations (urban and rural area; earlier a third category, the so-called „hobby garden” was used too). Within the district land offices, client services are responsible for the receiving of applications from and supplying data for the clients.  

The System, Structure and Duties of Land Offices
Contacts to the Land Offices

The System, Structure and Duties of the Land Offices

The district land offices (and their branch offices) have been maintaining the land and property registration data and managing the cases concerning all land and other real estates. The superior authority above district land offices are the county land offices, and in Budapest, the Capital Land Office, respectively, which are responsible for the professional direction, supervision and control at the same time. The county level land offices have been working under the professional direction, supervision and control of the Department of Land Administration within the Ministry of Agriculture.

The institutional network of the land offices (19 county level, 1 of the Capital, and 121 district level) has the duty of land and property registration (legal and geometrical data, property sheets and maps), the maintenance of data and map archives with data supply from them, and completing tasks related to land protection, land classification and land consolidation/reorganization on a daily basis.

The land office staff has been working under the leadership of the office heads and according to the relevant valid rules of law in the following organisational structure and completing duties listed below:

Division for Land Registration

• Managing of all cases, not depending on that, if there was any change in the data of the land, among the recorded rights and facts.
• The updating of the land registration – recording changes in the data – happens on the request of the client. The registration and updating procedures are computerised in every land office.
• During updating the registration, the case officer makes a decision about the recording/cancellation – in other words, about any changes in the rights or facts concerning the given land or other real estate – and sends a relevant notification to the client.
• Updating the personal and company data recorded on the property sheet based on the declared changes.
• Supplying data from the land registration database, according to the relevant rules of law.

Division for Land Surveying

• The basic task is to complete land surveying jobs concerning mainly the preliminary and final updating of the land registration map with the changes.
• Supplying data from the land registration map, the horizontal and vertical controls.
• Especially important task: examination and verification of land surveying jobs (which cause changes in the content of land surveying maps) performed by private land surveying entrepreneurs.
• Tasks concerning land compensation and the redistribution of lands owned as shared property.
• On-site inspection, maintenance and protection of control points.
• Examination of applications and claims concerning land surveying, supervision of land surveying activity.
• Performing certain servicing (land surveying) jobs ordered by clients (measuring and drawing a newly built construction on the land registration map, forming plots etc.).

Division for Protection, Classification and Use of Land

• Priority task is the classification and protection of agricultural land, controlling its proper use, issuing permits of using for other destination, investigation and sanctioning of use without permit.
• Maintaining the Land Lease Registration.
• Controlling changes performed in cultivation lines.
• Maintaining Soil Classification Maps.
• Data supply about cultivation lines, classification category of the agricultural lands etc.

Client Service, Data Supply

• In the majority of the district land offices, an independent client service is working with the duties of receiving applications and supplying data for the clients. Servicing of property sheet data are performed by computer through the internal data transferring network of the office.

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Contact Data of Land Offices

On the top of the home page you can find a search box (Land Office Address List) by settlement helping the orientation: you can get information, which district land office is territorially competent for managing the case of a piece of land situated in a given settlement.