New Law on Registration Procedure in Real Estate Cadastre (Official Gazette of Republic of Serbia no. 41/18) (the “Law”) entered into force on 8 June 2018.
The Law regulates the registration of real estate, rights, pre-notations and annotations pertaining to real estate. Having in mind that, in the past, the procedure before the Real Estate Cadastre lasted up to 15 days, the Law has a very ambitious aim to increase efficiency and accuracy of the Real Estate Cadastre, as well as to simplify and accelerate the procedure of registration of rights in the Real Estate Cadastre.
The most important novelty is that it will not be necessary to go in person to the Real Estate Cadastre, since the applications for registration as well as requests for issuing of electronic certificates and other documents from now on will be submitted to the Real Estate Cadastre in the form of an electronic document via the electronic counter. Also, a newly envisioned practice is that the procedure for registration in the Real Estate Cadastre will be initiated and conducted ex officio by the public notaries, courts, public enforcement officers and other state bodies, based on the documents that they have drafted, i.e. adopted. The Law also keeps the possibility for the parties, in certain cases, to initiate the procedure before the Real Estate Cadastre at their own request.
Cadastral officers will no longer have to check the material legality of a public document solemnized by a notary public on the basis of which registration is requested. Therefore, the efficiency of the registration procedure should be raised to a new level. Also, deadlines for various proceedings are shortened to 5 business days (except for a limited number of more complex procedures where the 15 days deadline remains). The Real Estate Cadastre will further issue a decision on registration in electronic form and it shall be delivered to the party by electronic means, whereby the delivery will be proved by electronic confirmation receipt.
It is expected that the relevant bylaws will be adopted within three months from entry info force of the Law. It is questionable how much time will be needed for the Law to be adequately implemented in practice, and it is almost certain that the gradual transition from written cadastral operations to electronic will depend on the technical capacities of the Real Estate Cadastre.