Land Legalization Revisited

Last July I wrote about the new federal, land legalization initiative that was starting. The process has been running for over two and a half months now, and from what I read and hear, it is not going well.

To recap, all Albanians who have purchased land without a proper title are being given the opportunity to legalize their landholdings without any penalities. Starting from July 15, they are given four months to complete a preliminary declaration saying that they would like to have their land legalized. After this four-month period, the local municipalities will be given the responsibility of completing the necessary reviews, technical work, and collection of payments.

From what I hear, like happens many times in politics, the federal government created the process without much consideration for the capacity of local governments to handle all of the work involved. Durres alone has around 10,000 illegal households, and an urban planning staff of around 10 people. Also, there seems to be some clashes between local governments and the new federal office that was established to oversee legalization. Tack on to this disputes over how to compensate claims by rightful former owners, and it is obvious that this situation is a long way from being resolved.