The costs for the development, operation and updating of the Cadastre of Public-law Restrictions on landownership (PLR-cadastre) will be offset by benefits for landowners, authorities and the various players in the real estate market, that are quantified at around 100 million Swiss francs a year.

Costs

A study carried out in 2006 concerning the costs of the introduction of the PLR-cadastre showed that the total costs (operating and surveying) will be somewhere between 100 and 350 million Swiss francs.

These costs will be incurred over a period of around 20 years, which means that an amount of between 5 and 20 million Swiss francs a year has to be budgeted. Here it should be pointed out that new public law restrictions on landownership will in any case exist in digital form, and will also be structured in the data model defined for the PLR-cadastre. This means that a high proportion of the updating costs is already covered today in the budgets of the relevant authorities at the federal, cantonal or municipal level.

Furthermore, any initial surveying costs that are not already covered in present-day budgets will be limited to a one-time adaptation of existing datasets and the digitisation of existing paper documents.

Benefits

The PLR-cadastre will give rise to direct cost savings, as well as to other benefits that are currently difficult to quantify, including greater market transparency as well as the potential development of innovative products and services which, according to the cited study, will give rise to greater economic prosperity.

The quantification of the benefits for the mortgage business, for owners of real estate, for the property evaluation sector and for private engineering companies anticipates positive effects to the tune of around 100 million Swiss francs a year. Here, mention should be made of the greater transparency concerning the legal situation in the real estate sector, which will result in a reduction of risk and thus in lower mortgage interest rates.