Why we have an International Unit

Land Registry has already played a significant part in the development of land registration systems worldwide. Consultancy activities and visits to this country by overseas specialists and officials has ensured that our counterparts overseas have been able to learn from our long experience. We too have learnt from our contacts with and visits to Registries abroad. In recent years international initiatives by the United Nations, the European Union, the World Bank and others have sought to build land rights and land transfer systems in the new democracies of eastern Europe and in third world countries.

To date much of our contribution and involvement has been ad-hoc, responding to needs as they arise and welcoming overseas visitors when they seek our assistance. We have, over recent years, played a more positive and permanent role in the work of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe providing practical land registration advice in Albania, Romania, Lithuania, Georgia and elsewhere.

The Quinquennial Review of 2002 acknowledged the work of the Registry in the International sphere and recognised its importance. It recommended that a small International Unit should be established at Head Office to co-ordinate these existing activities. It saw the Unit as developing our international role in a way that would reflect our standing, and our contribution, as a world leader in both the operation and the development of land registration systems.