The author conducted a comprehensive study of the legal basis of land accounting. The concept of land accounting as a legal category, the place of legal norms in the system of land law, legal forms of land accounting are defined. Particular attention is paid to the formation and development of Ukrainian legislation on land accounting. The paper reveals the concepts, objects, subjects of legal relations regarding land registration, defines the rights and obligations of subjects, legal means of ensuring legal relations and determines the legal liability that arises in case of violation of these legal relations. The periodization of the development of the legislation of Ukraine on land accounting has been carried out. It is stated that effective land accounting (land plots and rights to them), being important for the registration of land rights, rational use, protection and reproduction of land resources, as well as, for their management and overall successful functioning of the land market. The basis of the accounting and registration system of land in Ukraine, as noted above, is the State Land Cadastre. It reflects the information on land plots that accumulates as a result of land accounting.
The peculiarity of land plots as objects of land relations is that they not only constitute a kind of natural resources, but also act as an element of various landscapes. In this regard, it would also be appropriate to record in the statements and documents the data that characterize each land plot as an element of landscape, relief, etc.
It has been noted that land inventory, state land registration, various types of land surveys, including soil, geobotanical, etc. should be distinguished as part of the legal forms of land registration.
In the paper the focus is on the fact that state registration of land, as a separate legal form of land registration, is the entry into the State Land Cadastre of statutory information on the formation of land and assigning it a cadastral number by the State Cadastral Registrar. Legal tool kit for land registration in current conditions includes a geographic information system (GIS), designed to work with geoinformation and metadata, and 3D land cadastre, the operation of which allows improving land registration activities taking into account 3 spatial aspects - length, width and height.
It has been proved that in current conditions the leading legal form of land registration is state inventory thereof, the purpose of which is not only to establish their quantitative and qualitative characteristics required for maintaining the State Land Cadastre, state control over their use and protection, but also to identify land plots which are not used or are used irrationally or not for their intended purpose, as well as to detect and preserve degraded agricultural land and contaminated land.
On the basis of the research, some theoretical conclusions are made, a number of problems to be solved are outlined and proposals for changes in the current legislation are formulated, which will improve the legal regulation of land accounting in Ukraine.
