This topic examined the steps, time, and cost involved in registering a property, assuming a standardized case of an entrepreneur who wanted to purchase land and a building that was already registered and free of title dispute. In addition, the topic measured the quality of the land administration system in each economy. The quality of land administration index has five dimensions: reliability of infrastructure, transparency of information, geographic coverage, land dispute resolution, and equal access to property rights. The most recent round of data collection for the project was completed in May 2019. See the methodology and video for more information.
Doing Business records the full sequence of procedures necessary for a business (the buyer) to purchase a property from another business (the seller) and to transfer the property title to the buyer’s name so that the buyer can use the property as collateral in taking new loans to expand its business or, if necessary, sell the property to another business. It also measures the time and cost to complete each of these procedures. Doing Business also measures the quality of the land administration system in each economy. The quality of land administration index has five dimensions: reliability of infrastructure, transparency of information, geographic coverage, land dispute resolution, and equal access to property rights.
The ranking of economies on the ease of registering property is determined by sorting their scores for registering property. These scores are the simple average of the scores for each of the component indicators (figure 1). The quality of land administration index is composed of five other indices: the reliability of infrastructure, transparency of information, geographic coverage, land dispute resolution, and equal access to property rights. Data are collected for each economy’s largest business city. For 11 economies the data are also collected for the second largest business city.