Law on Land Reform in the Rural Areas of the Republic of Latvia.

This Law provides for the land reform in the rural areas of the republic of Latvia. The objective of the land reform is to reorganise the legal, social and economic relationships of land property and the use of land in the countryside during a gradual privatisation in order to promote the renewal of the traditional rural lifestyle of Latvia, to ensure the economic use and protection of natural and other resources, preservation and raising of soil fertility, increase of qualitative agricultural product production. The tasks of the land reform are to establish legal grounds for protection of the rights of users and owners of land. To develop economic and territorial conditions for the economic use and protection of land and other natural resources; to grant land for use to natural and legal persons in return for payment but to the citizens of the Republic of Latvia, who shall express such a wish, to restore land ownership rights or to transfer land into ownership without or with remuneration in accordance with the procedures prescribed by law; to ensure the formation of farms 1 and home farms 2 in conformity with a rational territorial plan; to retain such land area to the present land users without which it is impossible to use the buildings, structures and production facilities of public necessity for the intended purposes; to create pre-conditions for further consistency of land use area and external boundaries, as well as for preservation and restoration of farmsteads; and to determine the size of the sections of land to be granted for non-agricultural purposes in accordance with the intended norms or documentation of a project.