Disputes

Land is contested. Here's how Landblock handles it.

The core principle

Landblock records disputes — it doesn't resolve them. Courts and governments resolve land disputes. Landblock gives them a tamper-proof, timestamped evidence trail to work with.

Three tiers of dispute handling

Tier 1 — Registry-internal. A dispute within a single registry's jurisdiction. The FLS detects the conflict, logs it, and flags it in the DisputeRecord contract. The owning registry handles resolution under its own legal process.

Tier 2 — Cross-registry. Two registries have conflicting records for the same parcel — this happens at border regions, during land resurveys, and in contested territories. Both registries enter a facilitated channel, exchange evidence through the Evidence Store, and negotiate a resolution. The outcome is recorded on-chain once both registries sign off.

Tier 3 — Escalated. Disputes that can't be resolved between registries get flagged for human operators. A formal ticket is created and routed to the appropriate escalation path — an arbitration body, a diplomatic channel, or manual review. The full dispute record is preserved on IPFS.

The DisputeRecord contract

Every dispute gets an on-chain record containing the disputed parcel identifiers, which registries are parties, the current status (OPEN, UNDER_REVIEW, RESOLVED, UNRESOLVABLE), a pointer to the evidence bundle on IPFS, and timestamps for every status change. Dispute records are immutable — they can be resolved but never deleted.

When a court rules

When a court issues a final ruling, the relevant registry updates its own records and publishes a new proof that supersedes the disputed one. The dispute record is then marked RESOLVED with a pointer to the resolution proof. The historical record of the dispute — including all evidence and communications — remains permanently accessible.

Contested territories

Some regions have ongoing political disputes about which country has legitimate authority over land. Landblock handles these by recording all competing claims from all registries that assert jurisdiction — without deciding which claim is correct. The political question is outside the protocol's scope.

Next: Billing →