Georgia - Land Privatization and Real Estate Market Development Project

Under contract with USAID, Stewart, in partnership with Booz-Allen & Hamilton, successfully developed a legal and regulatory framework and implemented privatization and registration of agricultural and enterprise land on a massive scale in Georgia. Since July 1999 more than one million agricultural land parcels have been surveyed, mapped, registered and titled. As in Moldova and elsewhere where Stewart has operated, all parcel boundary and ownership rights are legally validated and registered at district registries and protected by Georgian law based on numerous legal and regulatory measures drafted, advocated and enacted as a result of the USAID Land Markets Project initiatives.

From October 1998 to the present, more than 7,000 enterprises had their land plots privatized and registered. Using the registration system established by the project, more than 1,200 enterprises re-sold all or portions of their unwanted land to other private investors, whose resulting ownership rights were properly registered. Moreover, more than 1,700 commercial mortgages have been registered as well, using the approaches and methods described herein. All work was performed by Georgian real estate services firms trained to assist in documentation and registration of rights arising from privatization and secondary transactions. The goal accomplished privatization and title issuance of 100,000 agricultural land and 2,000 enterprise land parcels. Since 1999 two thousand enterprise land parcels have been privatized and properly registered.