ABSTRACT
III The cadaster in France, Belgium, and Germany Whether the point of view of the interests of the tax office is taken, or the point of view of the interests of the landowners, it is necessary to have a cadaster, be it a fiscal or a landownership cadaster, the principal element of which is a prior triangulation. The map of the fiscal cadaster represents the region divided into properties according to ownership, and then into parcels according to their cultivation. The map of the landownership cadaster represents the land divided into owners’ properties only. This summary furnishes at once the similarity and the difference between the two maps. The landownership map and the fiscal map both contain as a common element the division of the region into properties according to ownership; the fiscal map contains, in addition, as a special element, the division of the region into parcels of cultivation. Consequently, it is certain that the same triangulation, and the sole and unique drawing up of the property network, connected with the triangular network by linking the boundary markers with the landmarks, may serve for the two cadasters. Briefly, the landownership map can be the basis for the fiscal map. [422] Not only can it be so, but it should be so. The fiscal map should not be drawn up independently of the landownership map, but simultaneously with it; in other words, according to property rights and not according to usage. The importance of this principle can easily be made clear. Suppose that the fiscal map has been drawn up separately, according to usage and not according to rights. This means that maintenance of the fiscal cadaster is impossible, or at least quite difficult, without first bringing usage into conformity with rights by discussions among owners, without presenting title deeds, without the intervention of commissions, without judgements being rendered or agreements recorded. Indeed, that maintenance is carried out mainly by means of the presentation of titles, and these titles will not fail always to make evident the absence of agreement between rights and usage. Let, for instance, a sale take place that leads to a subdivision of property; assume that the relevant parcels appear on the map as having greater or smaller sizes than those stated in the deeds presented. The surveyor who makes the modifications to the map necessarily knowingly makes a mistake in giving the new parcels greater or smaller sizes, with, as sole compensation, only the foreknowledge of making more mistakes in the case of modification of the neighbouring parcels. This example shows all the imperfections of the system. Under these conditions, one of two things can happen: either governments renounce the maintenance of the fiscal cadaster, which will become just as useless as if it did not exist, as happened in France, or they undertake its maintenance with difficulty and incorrectly, and with results that are not very useful, as is done in Belgium.
