Real Estate
What to check before buying an apartment, and what to do when the purchase, land registration, or a neighbor dispute goes wrong.
Area overview
The trade and ownership of real estate in Serbia is governed by several laws that often intersect in practice: the Law on the Trade of Real Estate (Zakon o prometu nepokretnosti) (form of contract - a sale contract must be certified by a notary public to have legal effect), the Law on Contracts and Torts (Zakon o obligacionim odnosima) (general contract rules, seller's liability for legal and material defects, consequences of delayed performance), the Law on State Survey and Cadastre (Zakon o državnom premeru i katastru) and the Law on the Procedure for Registration in the Real Estate Cadastre and Infrastructure Cadastre (Zakon o postupku upisa u katastar nepokretnosti i katastar infrastrukture) (registration of ownership and other rights in real estate), the Law on Planning and Construction (Zakon o planiranju i izgradnji) (conditions for construction and the occupancy permit, without which a new building generally cannot be handed over or registered), and the Law on the Basics of Property Relations (Zakon o osnovama svojinskopravnih odnosa) (protection of possession and ownership, including boundary disputes between neighbors).
Most of the problems people run into come from the gap between the formal state of the public records (the cadastre) and the actual state on the ground or in the documentation: an apartment is bought, and afterward an encumbrance turns up that was not visible or was not disclosed; a building is occupied, but registration of ownership is delayed because the occupancy permit is missing or the building was partly built without a permit; a parcel is inherited or bought, and the boundary with the neighbor does not match the cadastral plan in practice; a developer promises a handover date it does not meet. The law provides concrete protective mechanisms for all of these situations - from a claim for disturbance of possession and protection against eviction (in the legal sense of a third-party claim on the property), to termination of the contract and a request for cadastral registration - but the deadlines and conditions for using them differ from case to case, so an accurate diagnosis of the situation is the first and most important step.
The content that follows does not replace an individual legal analysis of a specific contract, land register extract, or dispute - it is meant to help you recognize which legal mechanism applies and what the next reasonable step is.
Sources
- Law on the Trade of Real Estate (Zakon o prometu nepokretnosti, Sl. glasnik RS, no. 93/2014, 121/2014 and 6/2015), Art. 4
- Law on Contracts and Torts (Zakon o obligacionim odnosima, Sl. list SFRJ, no. 29/78 ... Sl. glasnik RS, no. 18/2020)
- Law on the Basics of Property Relations (Zakon o osnovama svojinskopravnih odnosa, Sl. list SFRJ, no. 6/80 and 36/90, Sl. list SRJ, no. 29/96 and Sl. glasnik RS, no. 115/2005 - other law), Art. 77
- Law on the Procedure for Registration in the Real Estate Cadastre and Infrastructure Cadastre (Zakon o postupku upisa u katastar nepokretnosti i katastar infrastrukture, Sl. glasnik RS, no. 41/2018 ... 92/2023)
- Law on Planning and Construction (Zakon o planiranju i izgradnji, Sl. glasnik RS, no. 72/2009 ... 80/2026)
FAQ
Do I need a notary public to buy an apartment?
Yes. Under the Law on the Trade of Real Estate (Zakon o prometu nepokretnosti), a real estate sale contract is concluded in the form of a notarially certified (solemnized) document, before the notary public in whose territory the property is located; a contract not concluded in that form produces no legal effect (Art. 4 of the Law on the Trade of Real Estate).
How do I check whether an apartment carries an encumbrance before buying it?
The basic step is obtaining an up-to-date extract from the real estate register (cadastre), which shows who is registered as the owner and whether there are mortgages, recorded disputes, or other registered third-party rights. The extract can be obtained through the competent cadastre office or electronically.
What if my parcel's boundary doesn't match the cadastral plan?
This is common with older parcels and is resolved either by agreement together with a surveyor marking the boundary, or through the courts - a claim for disturbance of possession (if it concerns a recent unauthorized encroachment, filed within 30 days of learning of the disturbance and who caused it, and no later than one year after it occurred, Art. 77 of the Law on the Basics of Property Relations) or a court procedure to settle the boundary.