Some cardinal issues of the Hungarian land law

Abstract

Hungarian land law underwent serious changes after the change of regime in 1989-90. In addition to the reorganization of land ownership through compensation, in 1994 it also received new regulations in the form of the Act on Arable Land. It was then that the general prohibition on the acquisition of land by legal persons became an essential element of Hungarian land law. After that, an important question was what concept Hungarian law-maker would develop by the time Hungary became a member of the EU. At that time, Hungarian experts, including Tamás Prugberger, dealt a lot with the national land law of other EU member states. Hungarian land law differed from the land law of some comprehensively and strictly regulating EU member states in that at first it did not yet know the land-law-category of the agricultural holding and that it did not contain special rules concerning intestate succession of lands. In recent years, however, several pieces of legislation have been adopted in these areas. The present study briefly describes these changes.