The official website of the Republic Geodetic Authority (RGZ) of the Republic of Serbia allows individuals to access the central electronic database of the real estate cadastre for the entire territory of the country. In this way, an individual can check information about their property or the property they plan to buy through public insight.

Here are the details you must verify when buying or selling real estate:

1. Actual owner of the property – check whether the actual owner of the property is registered in the database and whether their registered personal data matches the data in personal documents;

2. Legal status of the property – if you are buying/selling an apartment, house, weekend home, etc., it is very important to check whether the property is legalized. For a property to be considered “legal,” it must be built in accordance with the laws and regulations of the Republic of Serbia. If the legal status of the property is registered as a usage permit or if the property was registered before the adoption of construction regulations, such a property is considered legal and built in accordance with the applicable regulations of the Republic of Serbia. This information is crucial when purchasing real estate through a housing loan and if the property does not have a usage permit, the bank will not grant the buyer a housing loan.

3. Form of ownership and type of right – for the property to be subject to transfer, it is mandatory that the type of right be OWNERSHIP and the form of ownership be PRIVATE. State ownership with the right to use the land cannot be transferred until ownership conversion is performed, and if the property is illegal, the form of ownership will be private, and the type of right will be holder, and such property cannot be transferred, as state property cannot be transferred.

4. Liens on the property or a specific part of the property (apartment) – it is essential to review the registered liens and notes, whether they exist and whether they pose an obstacle to the process of buying and selling real estate. If a mortgage is registered as a lien, it does not pose a problem for the transfer, as the mortgage is removed before the ownership transfer and registration, and if such property is purchased on credit, a second-ranking mortgage is established. In the case of the existence of the Right of Usufruct, before signing the purchase agreement, this right must be removed from the cadastre. Additional liens that you may encounter in public insight into the cadastre include prohibition of alienation, lease rights, usage rights, and similar.

The agency “Heroldo Real Estate” d.o.o. not only provides brokerage services in the sale and lease of real estate but also offers services for legalizing properties, drafting purchase/lease/gift agreements, verbal property appraisals, registering owners in the real estate cadastre, and many more services in the real estate market.