| Property is a powerful institution which a society weaves through its legal, economic, and political systems. In high income countries, formal recognition of property interests appears to bring considerable benefits. Public access to registries reduces information asymmetry while protection afforded by various property systems gives transacting parties confidence that their interests will be safeguarded. Governments also benefit: access to property information enables administrations lo improve decision-making and to implement revenue-generating services. In low income countries, most property interests are held informally, i.e., outside the formal legal, economic, and political sectors of society. Unsurprisingly, the design and implementation of land registration systems have been included in projects aimed at fostering development in low income countries. With few exceptions, registration projects in low income countries have failed to provide the expected benefits, for example, access to credit has not increased. Moreover, people frequently failed to register transactions in the newly created registers, thus rendering the costly compilation of registers a pointless exercise.;This research addresses a problem central to the on-going success of registration projects in low income countries: how can registration systems be maintained so that the initial investment is not lost but instead grows. In doing so, it uses an analytical framework encompassing a formal/informal sector construct together with one of security and risk management to investigate what a transformation from informal-to-formal property means, and how ownership and credit risks change when informal property is formalized. This analysis is used to develop a conceptual model relating security, credit, and registration systems. The conclusions suggest several shifts which should be made to conventional thinking regarding titling and registration in low income countries. |
