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Albania: Whether land deeds, or any other documents indicating land tenure, were issued in Fier on or about 5 May 1996 by any official person or agency (May 1996)

Information on whether any documents indicating land tenure were issued in Fier on or about 5 May 1996 could not be found among the sources consulted by the Research Directorate. However, the following information may be useful.

The Law on the Creation and Operation of an Immovable Property Registration System (IPRS), which was adopted by Albania's parliament in July 1994 (UN 2002), proposed a system to indicate the location, type, owner, mortgage and restrictions for property in Albania (World Bank July 2002). For the purposes of the IPRS, Albania is divided in to 3,086 rural cadastre zones, 134 urban cadastre zones, and 34 registration offices (UN 2002). According to the speaking notes of a World Bank Project Management Unit meeting in August 2000 in Tirana, the project seeks to register a total of 3 million properties (World Bank July 2002); by 2002, the United Nations' Economic Commission for Europe claimed that approximately 95 per cent of publicly and privately owned rural properties and 75 per cent of urban properties had been recorded by Albania's registration offices (UN 2002).

For further information on legislation related to land tenure in Albania, please see pages 1 to 4 of the Study on Key Aspects of Land Registration and Cadastral Legislation, published by United Nations' Economic Commission for Europe and available at <http://www.landregistry.gov.uk/assets/library/documents/wpla_inv2_p2.pdf>.

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the Research Directorate within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim for refugee protection. Please find below the list of additional sources consulted in researching this Information Request.

References

United Nations (UN). 2002. Economic Commission for Europe. Country Profiles on the Housing Sector – Albania. <http://www.enhr2003tirana.albnet.net/ece.hbp.130.e.pdf> [Accessed 30 May 2005]

The World Bank. July 2002. Deniz Baharoglu. World Bank Experience in Land Management & The Debate on Tenure Security. <http://www.worldbank.org/urban/publicat/land_final.pdf> [Accessed 30 May 2005]

Additional Sources Consulted

The Embassy of Albania in Ottawa.

A specialist in cadastral surveying and land tenure with experience in Albania at the University of Florida, Gainesville.

A law professor at Birkbeck College, London, a senior scientist of urban and regional planning at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, both with knowledge of land tenure in Albania, did not respond to requests for information.

Internet Sites, including: BBC, European Country of Origin Information Network (ECOI), Freedom House, Government of Albania, United Kingdom Land Registry, United States Department of State, Wikipedia, World News Connection (WNC).