The Ombudsman welcomes the approval of the new legal regime for the land registry (Decree-Law no. 72/2023, of 23 August), in the expectation that it will overcome the long delays in administrative complaint procedures (PRA) for the rectification of errors and/or the updating of elements in the land registry.

The administrative complaint procedure in force until now required the opinion of the Directorate-General for Territory and, due to a lack of human and material resources, it took an average of around 11 months to be issued – but the Ombudsman’s Office has received complaints about procedures where that deadline was far exceeded.

At the end of 2020, the Ombudsman signalled this problem to the Secretary of State for Nature Conservation, Forests and Spatial Planning, stating that this was an intolerable delay, which could cause damage not only to the individuals concerned, but also to the economy in general, and asked the government to adopt appropriate measures to overcome the problem.

With the approval of the new legal regime for the land registry, the administrative complaint procedure (PRA) for rectifying errors and/or updating elements in the land registry is being replaced by a new one, with the electronic platform BUPi (Balcão Único do Prédio) becoming the means of interaction for citizens with the Directorate-General for Spatial Planning, guaranteeing the interoperability of data held by public administration bodies.