NALED: Serbs Spend EUR 7.5 Billion on Real Estate Last Year, of Which One Third on Unregistered Property

Although citizens and companies set aside a record sum of EUR 7.5 billion for the purchase of real estate last year, as much as one third of that sum was spent on unregistered apartments, houses and other facilities. The transactions for real estate that is not registered in the land registry is a big problem in property-legal relations when it comes to real estate in Serbia, but not the only one, because other procedures in this field also create legal uncertainty.

The unresolved issues of ownership, illegal construction and long-term and expensive administrative procedures hamper a large number of investments in our country. That is why the NALED, with the help of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) will, over the next three months, prepare an all-encompassing study with a proposed solution for improving the procedure of registration in the land register, legalization, registering of public property, restitution, expropriation, land consolidation, conversion and other procedures.

– A total of 4.9 million facilities is listed in the land register, but nearly an identical number is not registered. Among them are over 2.7 million pieces of real estate which meet the conditions to be registered, but their owners have not done so or do not want to do so, whereas there are two million illegal facilities outside the land register that first need to be legalized. The solution for both groups is a simpler and digitized procedure, with less documentation and lower costs. Another great burden to further investments in real estate are also unresolved requests in the land register that were filed based on incomplete documentation, documentation which cannot be used for registration or the left-over request for the registration or rights to real estate submitted before 2018. Considering the evident lack of staff capacities at the Republic Geodetic Authority, representatives of interested legal professions, primarily public notaries, but also public enforcement officers and lawyers, should be enabled to make their contribution and help the land register services solve the left-over cases – says Jasmina Radovanovic, the head of the Unit for Property and Investments at the NALED.

According to her, the study has an ambitious goal of offering solutions for a final and successful transition of property relations over real estate in Serbia, from national into private ownership. That entails changing the existing laws and adopting new ones, as well as eliminating the institutes which complicate the transaction regime, because they belong to the old times, among which are the right to use a property, possession etc.

A team of professors, lawyers and attorneys, experts in this field, is taking part in the preparation of the study, and representatives of the economy and the competent institutions – the ministries of construction, finance and justice, the Republic Geodetic Authority, the Public Notaries Chamber, the Property Directorate, the Agricultural Land Administration and others – will also contribute to forming quality propositions. The first meeting of this group was held recently, according to the NALED newsletter.

NALED Beograd

Republički geodetski zavod Beograd

Javnobeležnička komora Srbije Beograd

NALED

Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency

Sida

Republic Geodetic Authority

Public Notaries Chamber

Jasmina Radovanovic

unregistered real estate

illegal facilities

registration of real estate in land register

restitution

conversion of right of use into right of ownership