When I run into stuff like this I can only think that an immutable decentralised ledger of some form that publicly holds the truth of things would be so much better. All land should be on some blockchain breaking down the exact coordinates of the land. Actually, I know someone who was working on this years ago.
There's no reason people can't trade their well defined property easily.
"Code as law" falls over pretty quickly in such cases as there is often a need for human intervention. This is a big problem I have with the grandiose claims of Eth. It definitely has a niche but will never be as widely applicable as they hope.