International Land Measurement Standard

ILMS is an international principle-based standard for land and property information. Its adoption will reduce risk in land and real property surveying and promote better land governance, robust conveyancing, secure lending and land registration.

ILMS provides global consistency by setting a standard for assembling land information that can be applied at a project, local, regional, state, national or international level. ILMS is therefore both a standard and a due diligence framework to enable evidence based assessment of land and property.

ILMS is divided into five parts. The introduction details the standard’s development and the drive behind it. Part 2 provides additional context around land information systems, the application of the standard and links with other international standards. Parts 3 and 4 cover the components that make up the due diligence framework and give examples of how this may be completed in both data rich and data poor environments. Key terms are then defined in part 5.

ILMS is flexible and can be adopted incrementally and/or partially in line with the sustainable fit-for purpose principles such as those being globally adopted in land administration. It will also advance best practice. Beyond due diligence, ILMS takes account of existing rights such as communal rights, tribal rights and gender rights, and considers the hierarchy of land rights within any land parcel.
ILMS may prompt market demand for publicly accessible and transparent registers of land information.

THE COALITION DIRECTED THAT ILMS SHOULD:

• serve the public interest
  
• focus on key land information elements, as required to de-risk and aid the land and property due diligence processes
  
• document the status of land tenure security and land rights
  
• support advancement of the SDGs.
  

ILMS IS A FRAMEWORK FOR:

• enabling the due diligence reporting process on land and property matters to take place for people and legal entities
  
• strategic guidance for reporting on land and property assets in support of reporting systems, such as the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS)
  
• advancing transparency, integrity and consistency.
  
• identifying what is on the ground, what information is available and the quality of the available information, rather than what is legislated or implied – this also includes recognition of gender specific issues.
  

In practice, ILMS can be adopted systematically and is capable of being used in all markets whether a functioning Land Information Systems (LIS) exists or not. ILMS provides a due diligence structure for the collection and collation of land and real property surveying information.