Overview

Honduras’s property-registry system was obsolete and created instability in the real estate market. The same property could be registered 2 or more times by different owners, leading to painful litigation. Furthermore, the system was inefficient. It could take 1 to 2 years to complete a property registration. The system was ripe for reform.

Today, land administration reform and a new, digitalized property-registration system have increased property owners’ confidence. Registrations are faster and more reliable. This case study looks at the reform process from conceptualization to funding to implementation.

Main Findings

• The registry in Honduras’s capital city, Tegucigalpa, received 65% more registration applications between July and December 2007 than in the same period in 2006.
• The time to register a property transfer fell from an average of 18 months (more than 500 days) to just 15 days.