UDC 333.61+333.133(083.8) 
061.3(497.12 Otočec)"J995":528 
LRECO S OFLA 
SACTIO S AND P 
EBASIS OF AM 
TEDECONO 
Maruška Šubic Kovač, MSc. 
Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geodesy - Municipal 
Economics Institute, Ljubljana 
Received lune 23, 1995 
Revised lune 23, 1995 
Abstract 
The article deals with the needs and possibilities in the field 
of official records of land transactions in Slovenia, including 
legal measures required far their establishment, maintenance 
and management. 
Keywords: Geodetic workshop, land market, land prices, 
law, official records of land transactions, Otočec, real estates, 
1995 
l INTRODUCTION 
CES 
T-
ith the division and ownership transformation of presently socially-owned land, 
the urban zones in the area of cities and urban settlements and in other areas 
in Slovenia will also become privately owned. Private ownership can present a large 
limiting factor for further growth and development of cities and settlements if the 
relationships between public and private property, planning and the market are not 
formally regulated by the state. In order to regulate these relationships and control 
the real estate market the state will need to know the situation in this market and 
establish and maintain records of land transactions and prices following the models 
of developed European countries. 
In connection with the formation of records of transactions and prices of land, the following hypothesis can be set for Slovenia: Considering the circumstances in the 
real estate market in the past, temporary official records of transactions and prices of 
land can be established as early as during the so-called transition period from 
administrative to market-dependent valuation of land. Such records will enable a 
more rapid transition to market valuation of land only if market valuation and such 
records are legally regulated and if all necessary measures for their successful 
establisi\ment, management and maintenance are defined in the legislation, along 
with sanctions. 
Geodetski vestnik 39 (1995) 3 
2 RECORDS OF TRANSACTIONS AND PRICES OF LAND 
Records are a means of purposeful and systematic monitoring and recording of data on certain events and items, including collections of such <lata (SAZU, 
1970). When referring to records one must therefore 
• define their purpose or applicability arising from certain needs, 
• enable systematic monitoring and recording of data. 
In Slovenia problems arise from non-standardized use of the terms records, register 
and cadastre (Republiška geodetska uprava, 1993) and their definitions. Past 
experience shows that even mere entering of data "on something" has been legally 
defined as records. Take, for example, the records on urban land. Today (23 June 
1995), the Law on Urban Land (Official Gazette of the SRS, No. 18/1984) stipulates 
that appropriate records on urban land should be kept, but it does not specifically 
define the purpose of managing such records. The professional basis for setting up 
records on urban land was established by the Municipal Economics Institute (Rakar 
et al., 1985). It stipulated that records of urban land should in addition to physical 
indude finandal data, including an analysis of prices of urban land. At that tirne 
legislators had certain reservations with regard to this proposal, which is entireiy 
understandable now, ten years later. The consequence of this is that the adopted 
records on urban land (Official Gazette of the SRS, No. 11/1988) do not comprise 
the complex management of urban land as determined at the institute and do not 
provide the administrative authorities competent for geodetic maHers with the 
motivation for setting them upo 
3 JPURPOSE OF RECORDS ON LAND TRANSACTIONS AND PRICES OF LAND 
e market economy is connected with the real estate market and market 
valuation of lando The following is above all important for countries: 
1) Legal definition of market-based methods of land valuation is only a necessary, 
but not a sufficient condition for the establishing of market valuation of urban land. 
In addition to other conditions (Rakar et al., 1993), official records on land 
transactions and their prices are necessary for market valuation. It is precisely 
because of the lack of appropriate data necessary for market valuation of urban land 
which can be obtained from such records that appraisers in Slovenia continue to use 
the administrative method of land valuation in accordance with the existing 
technology (Official Gazette of the SRS, Noo 8/1987). When appraisers use market 
methods for land valuation, greater differences occur between appraised values for 
quite comparable Jand, which presents an especially significant problem in the 
project of the constrnction of Slovenian motoiways. Since the state (perhaps not even 
on purpose) does not have official records of land transactions and prices of available 
land, each of the proposed values of land has the same possibility of being appraised 
as its market valueo For the same reason, the acquisition of land into the category of 
public property takes a long timeo 
2) The changed structure of land ownership in Slovenia and the constitutionally 
ensured equality of private and public ownership of urban land will have an influence 
of a difforent relationship between the public and private ownership and planning 
and the market, which could have an influence on the growth and development of 
Geodetski vestnik 39 (1995) 3 
Slovenian towns and cities in the future if the state does not control circumstances in 
the real estate market. In a market economy the state does not intervene in the field 
of pricing land as was customary in the past. The prices of land are formed freely 
with regard to supply and demand in the field of urban land. In order to introduce 
special state interventions, the state should be informed of the circumstances in the 
real estate market, especially for the prices of land. 
D ata on the situation in the real estate market, land transactions and prices are important for all participants in the land market. The source of demand, which 
gives this data its importance, is given in figure 1. 
FUTURE OWNER - BUYER 
lease contract 
legislation 
restrictions 
on tenants 
OWNER 
property 
right 
right on restriction 
of land use 
LAND MARKET 
OWNER - SELLER 
mortgage contract 
legislation 
MORTGAGE 
LENDER 
restrictions 
on lender 
Figure 1: Transparency of data on land transactions and prices, a precondition 
for the establishing and functioning of the real estate market 
Geodetski vestnik 39 (1995) 3 
he significance of information on the situation on the real estate market was 
especially emphasized at the FIG Congress in Berlin (Schaar, 1995). The 
established needs for data on the situation in the real estate market and prices, 
however, are nota sufficient condition for the establishing, maintenance and 
management of the said records. The necessary measures and sanctions which wiH 
enable the establishing, maintenance and management of such records should be 
determined by law. 
4 NECESSARY MEASUP.JES FOR SYSTEMATIC MONffORiNG AND ENTERENG 
OFDATA 
he following measures are required for the establishing, nriaintenance and 
management of records on land transactions: 
o establishing of an independent administrative organization which will 
establish, maintain and manage these records, 
o education of professionals for the establishment, maintenance and 
management of the said records and the professionals for the analysis of 
collected <lata, 
o valuation of land on standardized forms, 
o compulsory submitting of these forms to an independcnt administrative 
organization, including corresponding sanctions, 
o ensured puhlic access to results, 
o prescribed market valuation of land and compulsory use of data and results 
on the basis of these records including corresponding sanctions, 
as presented in detail in figure 2. 
5 EXPERIENCES AROUND THE WORLD AND IN SLOVENIA 
e high level of development of market valuation of land in Germany has its 
history. In the fifties, the circumstances in the field of urban land valuation in 
Germany were similar to the present situation in Slovenia, since they had then 
changed from legally restricted land prices to their free formation, Since both 
appraisers and official services often made biased appraiser's reports, they decided 
on establishing an independent institution, a court expert committee, which ~would 
(Friedrich, 1984): 
o give unbiased expert reports, 
o constantly monitor the prices of land, 
o enable everyone to acquire data on guideline values of land. 
Even though many times in the past tendencies have appeared for the privatization 
of expert committees or for decision-making in expert committees to be left to 
individual regional laws (Friedrich, 1984), the competencies of expert committees are 
at present determined by a federal building code law (BBauG) and are standardized 
for the entire country. 
Geodetski vestnik 39 (1995) 3 
NECESSARY MEASURES: 
-"--~~~--·---·-·~-~-··--
APPRAlSERS 
···· ··· • Prescribed forms k ·· ··· 
M•------------- for land 
~-----------~7 valuation 
REPUBUC ADMINISTR 
FOR PU:BLIC INCOM 
THE SURVEYING AND 
MAPPING AUTHORITY 
OF THE REPUBLIC OF 
SLOVENIA 
f 
,__ DATA .,;' 
·--T ... ----
INDEPENDENT 
ADMINISTRATIVE 
ORGANIZATION 
Records on land 
transactions and 
of land offered 
for sale 
data preparation, 
data analysis, 
results, 
annual :report 
A"':°').___ 
. ......._, RESULTS _..,/ . ... ._ .. ___,_ 
Compulsory 
submission 
of data 
Education of 
professionals for 
the establishing, 
maintenance and 
management 
of records 
Education of 
professionals for 
the analysis of 
collected data 
Prescribed 
public access 
to data 
Prescribed market 
valuation of land 
and compulsory 
use of <lata from 
the records 
Figure 2: Required data far the establishing, maintenance and management of records 
on land transactions and prices of fand in Slovenia 
o 
p:: 
o 
u 
lll 
p:: 
Geodetski vestnik 39 (1995) 3 
ith regard to the experience of Germany, we should also legally determine that 
such official records can only be managed by an independent administrative 
organization with no interest in land market, neither as a buyer nor as a seller of 
land. As a short-term solution, special offices should be established in administrative 
units and, long-term, special real estate offices should be established. Private records 
of appraisers of real estate and real estate societies exist in addition to these official 
records, but they do not have the character of official records. There can be only one 
official record and it must be unified for the entire country. A greater number of 
private records can only lead to a non-uniform assessment of the market value of 
land. The use of data and results on the basis of these records in the market 
valuation of land must be compulsory and sanctioned. 
The development of records of land transactions and prices of land depends on the development of the market in urban land and corresponding changes. In 
1994 the Municipal Economics Institute designed forms for recording land 
transactions and prices for unbuilt urban land. They were sent to large real estate 
agencies in Slovenia as an enclosure to the magazine Nepremičnine (Real Estates). 
Forms were designed such that they contained the smallest possible number of data 
required for the analysis of the real estate market and the prices of urban land in 
Slovenia. It was anticipated that such data are available to persons filling in those 
forms. The results of this analysis were published in Nepremičnine (Šubic Kovač, 
1995). On the basis of this attempt of recording land transactions and prices of land 
it can be claimed that the establishment of such records is possible even in the 
so-called transition period. Standardized forms for the valuation of land will have to 
be developed with the development of real estate market. 
The reporting of data on forms was voluntary in the above-mentioned survey. In order to be able to constantly monitor the circumstances in the land market, 
compulsory reporting of this data to an independent administrative organization will 
have to be stipulated by law, including relevant sanctions. Sanctions can be 
determined at the tirne of certification of sales contracts or upon entry into the land 
register. The results of the analysis of data from the records must be public and 
available to all parties present in the real estate market. Public access to the results 
has an influence of reducing the deviations of land value determined by sellers and 
appraisers from the prices actually achieved in the market. 
6 EDUCA'fION AND 'fRAINING OF PERSONNEL 
Professionals from various fields participate in the establishment, maintenance and management of these records. Since these records are directly connected with 
certain geodetic records (land cadastre, public utilities cadastre, building cadastre, 
records on the prescribed spatial protection and restrictions on interventions into 
environment), the role of a geodetic expert is essential in the establishment, 
maintenance and management of these records. With the extension of the knowledge 
of geodetic professionals into the field of land management, geodetic experts will 
also begin participating in the analysis of collected data, which is in accordance with 
the trends established by Hoisl and Enemark (Hoisl, Enemark, 1995) in their paper 
presented at the congress of the International Association of Surveyors (FIG). In the 
Geodetski vestnik 39 (1995) 3 
past, geodetic engineers in socialist countries dedicated their efforts above all to land 
measurement. Due to changed circumstances, Hoisl and Enemark believe that it will 
be necessary to include subjects from the field of land management in high-school 
and university curriculums in these countries. However, the latest draft of 
high-school and university curriculums at the Department of Geodesy at the Faculty 
of Civil Engineering and Geodesy, University of Ljubljana, shows an entirely 
opposite tendency. The number of lessons dedicated to land management, which was 
already relatively low in the existing curriculum, is expected to be further reduced. 
The question arises ofwhich trends the geodetic profession in Slovenia follows. 
7 CONCLUSION 
The need to establish official records of land transactions and prices of land will arise in the market economy and market valuation of land in Slovenia. Since 
legislation in the field of land use and geodesy has not yet been adopted, there is still 
tirne to incorporate all necessary measures enabling the establishment, maintenance 
and management of such records. To what extent Slovenian geodetic engineers will 
participate in this process naturally depends on what geodetic professionals prefer. 
Literature: 
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Stadt und Land. Bonn, lnstituts fuer Staedtebau, Bodenordnung und Kulturtechnik der 
Universitaet Bonn, 1984, p. 217-227 
Hoisl, R., Enemark, S., Education and Further Professional Training in Land Management during 
the Process of Transformation in Eastem Europe. V.- From Centrally Planned to Market 
Economy Contributions of Land Regulation and Economics. Papers to the lntemational 
Symposium. Berlin /lntemational Federation of Surveyors (FIG)/, 1995, p. 288-297 
Rakar, A. et al., Oblikovanje celovitega modela in opredelitev instrumentov zemljiške politike s 
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komunalno gospodarstvo pri FAGG, 1985 
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Surveyors (FIG)!, 1995, p. 349-356 
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Slovenije, 1970, p. 607 
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v Sloveniji. Nepremičnine, 1995, Vol. 3, No. 1, p. 22-23 
Review: Biserka Cizar (in preparation) 
dr. Miran Ferlan 
Geodetski vestnik 39 (1995) 3