• abolition of moratoria on land transactions;

• elimination of restrictions on the size of individual land ownership, land holding, or farm size (including leased lands);

• elimination of price restrictions or price controls in land transactions;

• free choice of the form of usufruct rights (e.g. share-cropping, leasing, etc.);

• elimination of land-use restrictions (e.g. obligation to grow designated crops), other than those associated with environmental considerations, including soil and water conservation;

• minimization of preferential rights to land purchase by the Government, the members of the large farm to which the land parcel originally belonged, neighboring landowners, or any other buyers;

• simple, fast and low-cost ownership transfer process for land, with low fees charged only for the registration of the land transaction itself;

• no taxation on the sale of land;

• legal acceptance of land title, land lease, and land use rights as mortgageable collateral for credit;

• easy public access to land information (parcel descriptions, ownership, liens, etc.).

• (Csaki & Lerman 1996:228)

In a number of countries landowners are subject to few limitations by the state regarding land transactions. Land can be freely traded. However, the majority of the countries have placed often comprehensive restrictions on the transferability of land, on land use and the maximum and minimum ceilings of land ownership.

Thus, the government limits land transfer in Kenya (prohibition of mortgage and leasing). Countries such as Nigeria, Ghana or Sierra Leone allowed a group (family land) to be entered in the register at certain periods in time. Land transactions continue to require a consensus from the group and are not possible unrestrictedly. Similar situations exist in many transforming countries.

In many countries maximum and minimum ceilings for land ownership have been determined. A maximum has been set to break up large estates and to avoid a strong concentration of land. The upper limit is often dependent on the farming system (cf. 3.7). Such ceilings have often been circumvented by large landholders by fictitiously dividing the land.

Determination of minimum sizes is to prevent farms from becoming too small, i.e. becoming uneconomical. Additional legal requirements are designed to hinder plots from being divided up smaller than a certain minimum size.

In contrast, little experience has been made with land transaction laws and preemptive rights. The goal of these laws which are applied in Germany in urban and rural development programs would be to control and influence transactions of agricultural and forest land by implementing transfer allowances. They should ensure that land is cultivated by the farmers themselves and that land is not purchased by "absentee landlords" as speculation objects and that the land is not further divided. Family farms or cooperatives could be promoted that way depending on the land and agrarian policies.

In many developing countries land tax plays a rather minor role based on its volume. However, the issue as to whether the tax could be raised more efficiently is often discussed. The tax could then be utilized for financing investments, services and decentralization.

The fixing of the existing ownership relationships and the valuation of land as a tax base require an efficient administration which is in a position to manage a land register, conduct land valuation, determine the rate of taxation and collect taxes. In many countries this has not been the case up to now, such that often other, indirect taxes are raised instead.

Often, a progressive land tax is introduced as a means of avoiding land speculation and to induce large landholders to adopt more intensive cultivation systems. In reality these taxes are often circumvented by fictitiously dividing the land or through exception regulations. In addition, the tax can distort the incentives for production.

Markets for land use rights are often not completely developed and are dominated by those offering land. Potential tenants complain about a lack of legal security and fear life-long dependency. For external observers lease contracts may appear ex post as being very long-lived. However, they must often be renewed annually and thus require "good behavior" from the tenant.

Large landholders in Asia are no longer exclusively involved in lease markets. Small landholders are starting to lease their land too. In such situations, the lessee and tenant generally have the same social and economic status.

The dynamics of lease markets in the East and Central European countries will play a key role in the future. Models are being tested in which a stepwise land ownership transfer can be practiced.

• Awarding clearly fixed lease contracts,

• Proof of the ability to efficiently cultivate the land during the tenancy period,

• Preferential conditions for land purchase after several years,

• Tenancy markets in socialist countries.

Markets for land use rights also play an important role in socialist countries like Vietnam and China. These types of markets began to be supported in 1994 in China. The user rights can be used as security for obtaining credit. In Vietnam secure user rights with a duration of 15 years were introduced in 1988. These rights were then increased to 20 years for annual cultures and 50 years for permanent cultures in 1993, whereby the state remains the owner of the land. Simultaneously, in 1993 measures for the implementation of Land Use Rights Certificates (LURC) designed to reduce the transfer costs and make the transfer of land easier were prepared.