Challenges of completing the land reform: The case of Kuldiga Municipality

After the restoration of Latvia’s independence in 1990, the goal of the land reform was to rearrange the legal, social and economic relations of land ownership and land use. In 1997 and 1998, laws on the completion of land reform were adopted in Latvia, which determined the procedure and conditions for the completion of this process. An essential condition for the completion of land reform is land surveying, issuance of land ownership documents to owners and registration of land properties in the cadastre. Estonian land researchers also obtained similar results during the analysis of the land reform in Estonia register, because only ownership rights registered in the land register give the opportunity to fully handle real estate. The demand for land is growing in various sectors of the national economy, and the full use of land plays a vital role in the development of the country. A quarter of a century has passed since the adoption of the previously mentioned laws, but not all land in Latvia has been registered as a property yet. The audit of the State Audit Office found that in 2022, more than 1 million hectares of land were not recorded in the land register in Latvia. The aim of the research is to investigate the challenges that have hindered the completion of the land reform, and Kuldiga Municipality has been selected as the research object, in the territory of which there are almost 9 thousand hectares of land not registered in the land register. In order to achieve the aim, the composition and ownership of land units not registered in the land register were evaluated, as well as the reasons for the completion of the land reform were analysed. The main reasons were found to be: insufficient funding for land cadastral surveying; legal obstacles caused by the long process of reform, due to the fact that many land claimants have died and their inheritors cannot be found; as well as the unfavourable conditions for renting and buying out lands set by the legislation.