On March 17-19, 1999, the Central American Project will host a conference on the subject of "Reforming Real-Property Registration Systems in Central America." Representatives of each of the countries in the region will meet with leading scholars and with representatives of multilateral financial institutions to discuss ways in which reform efforts already underway in Central America could be refined, coordinated, and accelerated.
To provide a foundation for the conference, we have prepared a report on the current condition of the property registry in each Central American country. Information for the report was gathered from a wide variety of documents (both published and unpublished, in both Spanish and English) and from interviews with registry officials and knowledgeable lawyers in all five countries. Brian Trackman, a Research Associate with the Project, first collected these various materials, then drafted a preliminary analysis of the condition of the registry in each country. Those analyses were then submitted to a "Working Group" of registry officials, who generously supplied Mr. Trackman with many comments and suggestions. Mr. Trackman revised the analyses accordingly. The five separate analyses have now been assembled into the enclosed draft report. We expect to revise the report at least once more to make it reflect as accurately as possible the current status of each registry and of the reforms already in progress. We welcome comments and suggestions.
William Fisher
Harvard Law School
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