The free registration of land in the ten municipalities that were part of the Balcão do Prédio Único (BUPi) pilot project, which ends on August 23 this year, is being extended. The guarantee is given by the coordinator of the Mission Structure Expansion Simplified Registration Information System (eBUPi), to Dinheiro Vivo. “The review of the entire legal framework” of the project is ongoing, where “there will be an extension of the deadline so that it is the same in all municipalities,” adds Carla Mendonça.
The simplified and free registration of rustic buildings started in August 2019 in ten municipalities – Alfândega da Fé, Caminha, Castanheira de Pera, Figueiró dos Vinhos, Góis, Pampilhosa da Serra, Pedrógão Grande, Penela, Proença-a-Nova and Sertã – with a fixed term of four years. In the meantime, the BUPi has been expanded and now includes 144 participating municipalities, out of a universe of 153 municipalities without national registration. Currently, registration in these municipalities is guaranteed free of charge during those four years and “depends on the date everyone entered”, explains Carla Mendonça.
The BUPi was created in an effort to get to know the national territory, identify the owners of small plots, especially in the north and center of the country, and is funded by PT2020 and the Recovery and Resilience Plan. “The PRR is the major financial force of the project with an expected investment of 55 million,” emphasizes the eBUPi coordinator.
Records with exponential rise
Although the simplified identification and registration of land started almost four years ago, “the numbers are increasing exponentially in the last six months”. In March of this year alone, more than 100,000 premises were identified, which corresponds to a daily average of about 4,800 processes, according to BUPi figures. “We have municipalities with a free period until 2025, so it is not the end of free that accelerates the process. This process requires a lot of proximity, we are talking about the elderly, with technological illiteracy, who are struggling to make this identification online. That is why this connection with the qualified technician and the proximity to the counter is very important,” he emphasizes.
The project has already identified 1.3 million properties owned by more than 200,000 citizens. But there is still a lot of land to register. “In the BUPi area, i.e. in the 153 municipalities, we have registered 8.6 million lands with the Ministry of Finance. There is a very large number of buildings that need to be georeferenced. The aim of the BUPi project is to have Knowing 90% of the territory of the 153 municipalities, in terms of use and occupation, and knowing 30% in terms of beneficiaries,” continues the eBUPi coordinator.
“Building with no known owner”
At the end of the four-year tip, if the land still has no identified owner, it temporarily becomes public domain. “Those who are not identified at the end of the BUPi’s free period may become subject to the “building without known owner” procedure. The land is provisionally registered for a period of 15 years, with the owner having the option to prove ownership and claim the land. Only after this period will it definitively transfer to the name of the state. can be managed,” emphasizes the head of eBUPi.
But in that scenario, if any public investment has been made in the land, the owner will have to compensate. “The state can step in, make any investment there is to make, and if the owner appears within that period, of course he will have to pay the state back for the investment that may have been made, but he will get back the domain of his property” .
720,000 hectares have already been georeferenced
The BUPi has already made it possible to georeference 720,000 hectares of land, with a small percentage of overlaps, Carla Mendonça guarantees. “This is one of the issues that is often brought up to devalue the project and even question its precision and accuracy. But in the georeferenced area we already have, of 720,000 hectares, only 2% are overlapping areas.”
“And we are also working on an artificial intelligence mechanism that will make it possible to correct some overlaps automatically. 50% of these 2% of the overlaps are due to design flaws, from the owner’s lack of knowledge of his own extremes and therefore there will be an automatic adjustment of extremes And then we also have the municipal engineers who when there’s an overlap they try to bring together the two owners who have this conflict of extremes to deal with these limits between them There will certainly be a residual number of overlaps that will continue, but already exist today on the ground, which the BUPi will try to resolve through arbitration and special resources that resolve any other type of conflict,” adds he to it.
event in battle
For Carla Mendonça, “there was the logic of ‘they’re going to take someone’s land’, but what we’ve seen is the exact opposite, people really want to set boundaries, they really want to see what’s theirs, more meters, less meters It was very interesting to realize how important the project is to citizens and how easy it was to articulate points of view between owners who have been to the BUPi. This part of the project was very satisfying.”
The results obtained in identifying the territory will be presented next Wednesday, the 26th, at the BUPi annual meeting, which will take place in Exposalão, in Batalha, and will be attended by various members of the government, including the ministers of Territorial Cohesion, Ana Abrunhosa, and Environment and Climate Action, Duarte Cordeiro.
Carla Alves Ribeiro is a journalist for Dinheiro Vivo
Source: DN
