Consolidation of the Albanian agricultural land reform through a program for creating an immovable property registration system

Abstract

The Albanian agricultural land privatization program begun in 1991 has resulted in the de facto distribution of nearly all of the agricultural land of the country to former members of cooperatives and workers on the ex-state farms. However, only about half of the land has been legally titled, and of the land titled, many of the present holders of the land feel insecure in their ownership because of lingering claims of the ex-owners of the land from prior to the collectivization of the land by the previous regime. Moreover, the distribution of the land was done by village land commissions which produced some discrepancies between the documentation of the new ownership and what in fact is owned. Finally, the privatization of agricultural land was not accompanied by explicit and clear legal definitions for the privatization of housing in the villages. The program for creating a new System for the Registration of Immovable Property is providing some resolution to the problems which have emerged from the rapid and comprehensive privatization of agricultural land.