Rate of property documentation

Property rights are a cornerstone of economic development and social justice. PRIndex supports the achievement of secure property rights around the world by creating a baseline global dataset measuring individual perceptions of tenure security.

In all countries studied, residents who said they personally own or rent their homes (and only them) were asked whether they had property documentation and what type of of document they had to support their right to live there.

Based on the reported characteristics of the property documentation, respondents were classified into three categories: Formal documentation; Informal documentation; and No documentation.

For homeowners, formal documents include a title, deed or some country-specific form of formal record. Any other document cited by respondents is regarded as informal. For renters, a lease deed or agreement is the only type of document categorized for the purposes of this survey as formal. The data can be further disaggregated for urban and rural areas.

The indicators presented here on the Land Portal represent only a fraction of the data collected and additional information about the PRIndex methodology can be found in the first PRIndex report.