The billions of dollars projected in profits and savings across the entire land record management industry in exchange for just the millions of dollars needed to implement Universal National Parcel Number Compliance is proving to be the extra incentive necessary to finally establish the long-on-the-Congressional-Record-books National Land Parcel Database. NPN Compliance is a globally unique, never-changing ID assigned to every parcel in the country. Why does Universal NPN compliance matter so much? Keep reading.
National Parcel Number Data Structure
DILEMMA - Disbursed Land Registry
Every person in the U.S. is assigned a national person number (your social security number), but no similar scheme exists for U.S. real property parcels. Instead, indexing depends on local Assessor Parcel Numbers assigned at the sole discretion of each Authoritative Cadastral Data Sponsor, typically the county assessor. National and state guidelines stridently dictate that APNs are to never change so that, in a perfect world, a combination of the APN and county’s FIPS number would be a built-in National Parcel Number. Though mandated to never change, APNs do change, and too often to be the basis of an internationally compliant National Parcel Number. According to the National Association of Counties, “Some states have been successful within the state to accomplish a unique parcel ID, but even then, it is not utilized by all counties within the state.” Until a National Parcel Number has been assigned to every property boundary, the U.S. will continue to miss out on substantial efficiencies enjoyed by Europe, Asia and beyond, all flowing from a perpetual link between all manner of real property-related records and the piece of ground to which they pertain.
How will Universal NPN Compliance happen?
With enough support in endorsements (organizational and/or personal), a congressional order will charter NPN USA as a stand-alone NGO to administer a grant program funded under the upcoming infrastructure bill. Ample NPN Compliance ACDS chargebacks shall include overhead, administration, as-needed data completion/ownership and lost data sales. A standard internet interface will be installed at each ACDS site so that all changes to ACDS parcel map databases are mirrored in the National Cadaster in real time, the one best way to guarantee authenticity of each assigned NPN.
Think of the American Cadaster as a rug knitted by about 4,000 local data sponsors. Local changes to parcel boundaries and APNs are mirrored in the NLPD, enabling NPN assignment to both guaranteed to be AUTHENTIC.
Task Flow for NPN USA Formation and Universal NPN Compliance
BENEFITS
NPN USA will provide transformative benefits to title companies, financial institutions, real estate, right-of-way, survey, energy, insurance, and all other enterprises that traffic in land records, whole or in part. ACDSs will benefit from being able to optimize aging enterprise operations with the latest indexing technology heretofore hobbled by mandated preservation of traditional APNs. Regarding all counties going to open records for the first time, as indicated in the article from Fair & Equitable magazine shown below, long delayed transparency may invite a storm of new investment, causing a modest to quite large bump in the tax base growth of up to 25% of the American people.
Relative Availability of Digital Parcel Map Databases
Benefits by Economic Sector
The call to action is to urge your congressperson to review and support this one-page NPN USA REPORT to administer a funded mandate for all ACDSs to become NPN Compliant by assigning a National Parcel Number to every parcel boundary in their digital parcel map databases. Inherent in this solution is the aggregation of this national indexed parcel map into the National Land Parcel Database, bringing the U.S. to parity with scores of modern nations that have already achieved Universal NPN Compliance. NPN USA shall be primarily/fully funded by industry within 3-5 years.
THE TAKEAWAY
Are you in favor of replacing America's currently incomplete, out-of-date, unindexed, expensive National Cadaster of questionable quality and authenticity with one that is universally complete, indexed, sound, authentic, and current to-the-day (not year)? If yes, look for a SURVEY coming your way giving you a chance to tell your congressperson to vote for it.