For many centuries land relations in the territories of Latvia and Russia have been developed by different influences of different foreign forces. The comparison of orientation and dynamics of the land reform in countries with similar initial parameters allowed analyzing the impact of changes in property relations on activities of farms, their productivity, involved costs and the benefits. The main conclusion is that the land reforms in Latvia and in Russia were not the main objective of agricultural land use saving and development of agricultural enterprises.

The main peculiarities of land relations abroad are highlighted in the article. Basic principles of foreign experience of land use regarding market circulation of land, concentration of major land resources by right of ownership as well as the process and ways of reformation of land relations are generalized and systematized. Some peculiarities of lease relations, collection of rents and restrictions on title to land for foreigners are analysed. Some positive aspects are distinguished in order to use them in Ukraine. Some ways of improvement of land legislation in Ukraine are suggested taken into account foreign experience.

The current situation in land leasing in Ukraine is analysed, when a tenant of a land parcel with immovable property is sold in part, which causes the following controversy: the land parcel in someone’s lease has buildings or constructions owned by another physical or legal person (other than the tenant). The interested party wastes a lot of time on resolving this controversial situation with the existing procedures in Ukraine. This problem is not always solved professionally because of the lack of sellers’ and buyers’ knowledge of specific features of land management and geodesy. Three main variants of mutual location of the seller’s and the buyer’s buildings and constructions are defined, which determines the possibility of dividing a land parcel. Recommendations on the improvement of the procedure and normative legal acts of Ukraine concerning the issue are developed, aimed at significant acceleration of signing and registering new lease agreements.

The changes in the ownership structure were to be implemented by the Agricultural Property Agency of the State Treasury, which, under the Act of Law of 11 April 2003 on the structuring of agrarian system (i.e. The Journal of Laws of 2012, item 803, as amended), on 16 July 2003 became the Agricultural Property Agency with eleven local branch offices. For the purposes of this article the monographic method was used for the overview of relevant literature and legal provisions, whereas the statistical analysis was employed in the data of the Central Statistical Office and reports on the activities of the Agricultural Property Agency. Until the end of 2015 the main objective of the Agricultural Property Agency was to restructure and dispose of the assets within the Agricultural Property Stock of the State Treasury. Since its foundation, the Agency expanded the Stock by 4.74 million ha. Over time, the operating conditions for the Agency were in a state of flux – they were being adjusted to the changing socio-economic situation. At the beginning, leasing was the basic form of disposal of the Stock land. After Polish accession to the European Union an increased interest in the acquisition of agricultural property was observed. By the end of 2014, as a result of land sale, free-of-charge land transfers or other transactions, approximately 3.2 million ha were disposed of, i.e. about 70% of the whole land which was taken over. Currently, according to the legal provisions, long-term lease is the basic form of disposal of the Stock land.

The result of the long existence of legal restrictions on the agricultural land market in Ukraine was the formation of a specific leasehold system of land use. Agricultural enterprises and farms do not have land owned. Instead, the peasants who became owners of land during the distribution of collective farms, mostly do not process these parcels of land on their own, but also deprived of the right to alienate them (to sell, give, change). The study shows the development of leased land use of agricultural enterprises in Ukraine, which currently covers 16.8 million hectares of private land and about 1 million hectares of state-owned land. Since 2003, the civil law of Ukraine permitted to apply not only the lease of agricultural land, but also the emphyteusis right (the alienated right to use someone’s land for agricultural purposes), the process of transformation of lease into emphyteusis was started, especially in large agricultural holdings. The main advantages of emphyteusis as a substantive law and its attractiveness for agribusiness are considered. The suggestions on improving the legal regulation of land use under conditions of emphyteusis are given.

The key features of the blockchain databases, such as decentralization, distribution, security, and record of the history of all transactions, create significant prospects for their application in the field of cadastre and real estate registration activities, including creation of the global real estate cadastre infrastructure, which will be able to go beyond national legal systems and jurisdictions. The conceptual approach to registration of land plots as spatial objects using blockchain technology is proposed. The land plot should be considered as a combination of smart contracts between landowners, surveyors, appraisers, notaries and other persons. The subject of such contracts will be the description and establishment of spatial (plot boundaries, territorial zones, etc.) and other (property rights and encumbrances, monetary valuation, soil bonitet, etc.) characteristics of land plots. The classification of such smart contracts reliability is also presented.