Lessor’s status in land consolidation in Finland

Authors

• Kimmo Sulonen City of Tampere, P.O. Box 487 FI-33101 Tampere
• Seija Kotilainen National Land Survey of Finland, P.O. Box FI-00521 Helsinki, Finland

Keywords:

lessor, landowner, leaseholder, land consolidation, survey study

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to investigate lessor’s status in land consolidation procedures in Finland. This status was investigated from the functional and juridical points of view. The research was based on survey made for lessors and supporting surveys made for land consolidation experts. The main purpose of the surveys was to find out how the lessors themselves experienced their status. According to the results the lessors’ experiences in land consolidation (LC) phases are mostly moderate or slightly positive but not wholly positive. This is by the lessors’ concern that land consolidation causes additional and unnecessary costs for them. Experiences of costs, such as cost distribution and how well the rents of arable lands cover the costs of land consolidation are most negative among lessors. The most positive experiences are from road and ditch improvements. However the experience varies slightly between regions. Altogether, the status of lessor may be improved in the future by focusing to informing and cost-sharing. The informing of the lessors can be information of different phases of land consolidation along with the lessor’s opportunities to influence on those phases. Sharing the costs with the leaseholder requires that lease periods are longer than a few years.