A blockchain-based e-goverment service for Quantity Surveyors
Ángel F. Alcaide, Carlos Núnez-Gómez, Francisco M. Delicado, Carmen Carrión, M. Blanca Caminero
TL;DR
The paper addresses the need for immutable, traceable, and cost-effective e-government documentation for Spain's COAATs. It proposes COAATChain, a blockchain-based system using smart contracts, a contract factory, KYC onboarding, and off-chain IPFS storage with Secure Verification Codes to manage properties and dossiers, deployed on the Binance testnet to assess affordability. Key contributions include a stakeholder role model with first-level goals, an end-to-end dossier workflow with on-chain validation and IPFS-backed documents, and an affordability assessment showing feasible costs on public blockchain infrastructure. The work demonstrates a viable blueprint for interoperable, decentralized e-government services for professional associations and public administrations.
Abstract
In Spain, quantity surveyors are entitled to carry out official cadastral surveys, attestations, and certificate issuing according to a well-defined professional code. Official Associations of Quantity Surveyors and Technical Architects (COAAT) are responsible for endorsing the documentation related to actions performed on buildings. An e-platform that enables immutability, traceability, and a unique property record among all the Spanish COAATs, with an affordable cost, is essential to streamline the involved processes. The blockchain technology and smart contracts have recently emerged as promising solutions for e-government services due to the inherent features provided by the technology. In this paper, we identify the design goals and propose a blockchain-based e-government system for the electronic management of the documentation generated, submitted, and validated by the Spanish COAATs, namely, the COAATChain. The proposal has been deployed and evaluated on the Binance testnet blockchain, in order to assess its affordability.