Desarrollo de un indicador de Predios Informales en el proceso de actualización catastral en el marco de la gestión catastral realizada por el Instituto Geográfico Agustín Codazzi (IGAC.).

Abstract

Informal land ownership in Colombia generates socioeconomic and legal challenges that hinder the sustainable development of the country. This informality, which includes the irregular possession of land and the occupation of vacant lots, causes legal insecurity and complicates the planning and execution of public policies, in addition to exacerbating problems related to the social organization of property and the environmental and productive planning of the territory. In response to this problem, the Multipurpose Cadastre is positioned as an essential structure in land administration, since it allows for the collection of detailed data on the properties, becoming an input for the subsequent processes of formalization and regularization, by integrating the physical, legal and economic aspects of the properties, The Multipurpose Cadastre seeks to improve cadastral management, as a fundamental input together with the real estate registry in charge of the Superintendence of Notaries and Registry to strengthen legal security and promote orderly urban and rural development. The Agustín Codazzi Geographic Institute (IGAC), as the entity responsible for cadastral management, plays a crucial role in the implementation of the Multipurpose Cadastre Policy, which is the basis for the comprehensive Rural Reform defined in the National Development Plan (Law 2294 of May 19, 2023), facilitating the identification and formalization of informal properties and contributing to the consolidation of the Territorial Administration System. As the highest cadastral authority in Colombia according to Law 1955 of 2019, the IGAC plays a fundamental role, since, it establishes the regulation for cadastral processes, defining the parameters for the collection of cadastral services, enabling cadastral managers, consolidating the National Cadastral Information System (SINIC), and acting as cadastral manager in the municipalities under its jurisdiction to ensure an effective and accurate territorial administration. With the objective of having tools that help identify property informality and improve the quality of cadastral information, the IGAC has defined a comprehensive strategy that includes the implementation of the Multipurpose Cadastre Policy in Colombia, this policy, according to CONPES 3859 of 2016, seeks to transform the traditional cadastre system by offering a Land Administration System (SAT) based on the property. This approach goes beyond the fiscal or tax purposes of the conventional cadastre which by improving its interrelationship with the real property registration system strengthens legal certainty through the detailed representation of stakeholders on the properties, including occupation, possession and full ownership. In addition, it is fundamental information because it facilitates informed decision making in land use planning and economic, social and environmental planning, by promoting the consolidation and implementation of the RDM (Master Data Repository), which will allow the interoperability of cadastral and registry information with the layers generated from the information on the rights, restrictions and responsibilities related to the properties in an articulated and legally binding manner. Resolution 1040 of 2023 of the IGAC highlights the importance of incorporating cadastral information that reflects the physical and legal reality of the properties, consolidating a census of public or private real estate located in the national territory, regardless of who is the holder of the rights over the property. This means that, from a technical-cadastral perspective, the aim is to incorporate in the cadastral database the information that faithfully represents the physical situation of the properties, even if this information does not coincide exactly with their precise legal definition. One of the aspects highlighted in this resolution is the condition of property informality, this resolution establishes in article 5.1.1 that “...,for the purposes of incorporation in the cadastral database, the superposition of an occupied or owned property over another public or private property, respectively, will be considered as a condition of property informality, provided that the second property (public or private) has been identified cadastrally and is considered formal for cadastral purposes.” Therefore, this internship was carried out, which combined the academic and practical components to propose and develop an indicator of the behavior of informal properties, both rural and urban, thus allowing the Projects Sub-Directorate of the IGAC to optimize the planning, budget and operational efficiency of the cadastral updating processes in the municipalities under execution. For the construction and development of the property informality indicator, the results of the cadastral update of several municipalities were used, including Arauquita, Gachancipá, La Tebaida, Paz de Ariporo, Popayán, Río Blanco, San Carlos, San Juan de Arama, Santa Rosalía, Tocancipá and Villarrica, in addition to secondary information sources available at the IGAC and other entities. During the internship, several activities were carried out, including an exhaustive analysis of the available cadastral and registry information to identify and classify informal properties in the selected municipalities. Key variables were defined, such as the lack of a registration folio, the ownership status of the properties, the occupation of vacant properties and the possession of properties owned by others, in order to develop an indicator to quantify the magnitude of property informality. The result of this work represented an analysis that covered both urban and rural areas of the selected municipalities. This analysis provided a description of the situation of property informality for the 2022, 2023 and 2024 updating periods of each municipality, which represents a fundamental input for the planning, coordination and estimation of operation times of the cadastral updating projects by the IGAC's Project Sub-Directorate. When specifically addressing the behavior of property informality, the results of the indicator revealed a trend towards an increase in informality in several municipalities between 2022 and 2024. Additionally, an analysis of the Registration Gap was conducted, which is a crucial indicator to reveal the discrepancy between the amount of properties registered in the cadastre and those registered in the public registry office. The results of this analysis highlighted the need to improve the cadastral registration and updating processes to reduce this gap. This implies strengthening the interrelationship between the cadastre and the registry, with the objective of improving the quality of the cadastral information, which in turn will guarantee a more robust and accurate database, which is crucial to strengthen the legal security of the properties. Also, an occupancy indicator was developed with the objective of projecting the identification of vacant properties based on the incorporation of informal properties. In other words, it seeks to analyze the behavior of informality in terms of land occupation, in order to standardize the process of identifying vacant lots based on the informal properties that are incorporated into the cadastral base. This Occupancy Indicator provided important findings on the need to improve the systems for monitoring and recording cadastral mutations to ensure the integrity of the database and the accuracy of the cadastral information.