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Land Registry

Problem​

Land ownership in many parts of the world are based on antiquated government systems. In some places, land records are even still stored on paper registries!

Opportunity​

EAS can enable a global, standardized trust layer for governments and citizens that powers verifiable land ownership registries. Using blockchain-based attestation services, governments can digitize land registries, providing a secure and efficient way to prove ownership of a plot of land. By using attestation services to verify land ownership and transfer, the process can be streamlined, reducing the risk of errors and fraud.

Example schema​

Using EAS, governments can attest to the ownership of land.

The schema may have 3 properties:

bytes polygonArea, uint8 landType, uint24 expiry
  • bytes polygonArea - A set of GPS coordinates that defines the verticies of the land (a closed polygon space)
  • uint8 landType - Defines if the land is free-hold (0), lease-hold (1), or other (2)
  • uint24 expiry - If the land is lease-hold, the expiry date of the land deed

Example attestation​

Here is an example attestation record: 0x0f41ffcf00a7b8d3e3a1c934083fb7e6733d74190eb0668399aa81c3c68428f3 attesting that an address 0xA9c1f68A8003209aAc228001c175ca688ef0E503 owns some a land.

  • bytes polygonArea [[4068886000,-7404463000],[4069003000,-7404721001],[4069101000,-7404669000],[4069065000,-7404429000],[4068976000,-7404326000],[4068872000,-7404360000]] (4 GPS coordinates defining a rectangle)
  • landType: 1 (1 is for lease-hold)
  • expiry: 0 (unix timestamp of the lease-hold expiry date)

If you plot this polygon on a map you’ll see the piece of land it encloses. And if you check the attestor address, you’ll see the Authority who attested to it.

Future composability​

Thinking for the future

How can this evolve as EAS grows? How can this be composed with other attestations?

Land ownership in the future​

  • Land and property can be bought and sold ON-CHAIN.
  • Property and land can be tokenized as NFT’s and ownership details attested to.
  • Governments can attest to the new owner of any land once the NFT is sold or transferrerd.
  • A smart contract that handles the sale of the property NFT would need to meet all the attestation requirements that a government demands in order to be valid.
  • Once the governemnt attests to the validity of the sale, Funds could be a released from the Buyer to Seller automatically, and a portion could be transfer taxes to the government.

Improving the mortgage process​

Attesations can also help buyers and lenders to create a more competitive and trasnsparent mortgage market. Let’s think of a future example where Bob wants to buy some land, but needs a mortgage.

He can collect the following attestations from trusted providers which would be useful to help him buy the land title ON-CHAIN

1. Identity (Schema #111)
2. Credit score (Schema #222)
3. Personal Income (Schema #333)
4. Proof of Address  and other KYC (Schema #444)
5. Net worth (Schema #555)
6. Credit worthiness (Schema #666)
7. Appraisal value of the property he wants to buy (Schema #777)

Based on the attestations above, Lenders can decide whether or not they want to loan to Bob to buy a particular property.

  • If he meets their demands, (i.e. Credit score, income, Loan-to-Value, etc) They can deposit the USDC into the DAPP and atomically receive a lien on the property.
  • As soon as the government attests to the validity of the sale, the DAPP can atomically pay the seller and receive the NFT title from them.
  • The NFT can remain inside the DAPP custody contract until the mortgage is fully paid off, at which point it can be transferred to the sole owner.
  • Mortgage payments will be made inside the DAPP contract.
  • If the owner defaults on his mortgage payments, the Smart contract will realease the NFT title to the lender/bank, who can now take ownership of the property and sell it on some cool Mortgage DeFi platform trading site.

It’s the future.