Practice area · Leskovac, Serbia
Property law in Serbia
Property law (imovinsko pravo) decides who owns a thing, what the owner may do with it and how these rights are protected when someone disputes or infringes them. In practice it mostly concerns real estate: houses, apartments, building plots and agricultural land.
Property law is the area Mihajlo Savić is most dedicated to. This page gives an overview of the questions it covers and explains the basic terms, so that you can see more easily which topic your situation belongs to. Serbian terms are given in brackets, because you will find them on Serbian documents.
What property law covers
In everyday use, property law covers several related subjects. What they have in common is that they concern rights over things and the relations that arise from those rights.
- Ownership (pravo svojine): how it is acquired, proved and protected.
- Possession (državina): actual control over a thing and its protection in court.
- Co-ownership (susvojina) and joint ownership (zajednička svojina): relations between several people who have rights over the same property.
- Partition (deoba): ending co-ownership, by agreement or through the court.
- Boundaries (međe) and easements (službenosti): plot boundaries and the right of way over someone else's land.
- The Real Estate Cadastre (katastar nepokretnosti): registration of rights, correction of errors, annotations.
- Real estate contracts: sale, gift, lifelong maintenance, lease.
- Inheritance: the passing of property to heirs and the disputes that can follow.
Common situations
The property is registered in someone else's name
The cadastre still shows a previous owner, a deceased relative or a person who has long had nothing to do with the property. As long as the register does not match reality, the property is difficult to sell, give away, divide or mortgage. The way forward depends on why the registration was never made. Sometimes it is enough to complete the probate proceedings or to apply to the cadastre with a document that already exists; sometimes court proceedings are needed.
Co-owners cannot agree
A house or land belongs to several people, most often after an inheritance. One co-owner uses the whole property, another wants to sell their share, a third asks for partition. Every co-owner has the right to request partition. When agreement is not possible, the court decides how the property is divided: physically, if the property can be divided, or by selling it and dividing the price.
A dispute with a neighbour over a boundary or a right of way
The boundary on the ground does not match the register, a fence has been moved, or a neighbour disputes a path that has been used for years. A boundary can be settled by agreement or in court proceedings, with a surveying expert. A right of way is resolved under the rules on easements.
Someone has occupied the property or interferes with its use
A changed lock, a new fence, a ploughed strip of a field or a blocked road are examples of interference with possession (smetanje državine). For such cases the law provides special, fast proceedings in which the court protects the last peaceful state of affairs, without deciding who the owner is. The deadlines for bringing a claim are short, so it is better not to wait.
Buying or selling real estate
Before a contract is signed, it is checked who is registered as the owner, whether the property is subject to encumbrances or annotations, whether the building is registered and whether anyone has a right of pre-emption (pravo preče kupovine). Mistakes made at this stage are hard to correct later, and most of them can be spotted by looking at the title deed (list nepokretnosti) and the seller's documents. More on this: buying real estate in Serbia.
A building is not registered in the cadastre
A house, a floor or an extension exists on the ground but not in the cadastre. The rules on registering such buildings have changed several times, most recently in 2025, so a solution is always based on the rules in force when the application is filed.
Ownership and possession are not the same
Ownership is a right: the owner may hold the thing, use it and dispose of it. Possession is a fact: the possessor is whoever actually controls the thing, whether or not they are entitled to it. The owner is not always the possessor, for example when an apartment is let, and the possessor is not always the owner.
The difference matters because ownership and possession are protected in different proceedings. A possession dispute is fast and limited to who last held the thing peacefully and who disturbed that state. An ownership dispute is broader and decides who is entitled to the thing. A decision on possession does not prevent a later dispute about ownership.
Why registration in the cadastre matters
When real estate is acquired by contract, for example by purchase, gift or exchange, ownership is acquired only on registration in the Real Estate Cadastre. A signed and certified contract is the basis for registration, but on its own it does not make the buyer the owner.
Inheritance is different. The estate passes to the heirs at the moment of death, and registration in the cadastre makes that visible to third parties. This is why unsettled estates are often passed down from generation to generation, and the problem only comes to light when someone wants to sell or divide the property.
If you live abroad
Many owners of property in Serbia live in another country. Most of the work on a property matter can be done without your presence: documents can be sent by email for a first review, and the lawyer can act on your behalf on the basis of a power of attorney (punomoćje).
- A power of attorney signed abroad is usually certified at a Serbian embassy or consulate, or by a notary in your country with an apostille.
- Documents in a foreign language are translated into Serbian by a court interpreter (sudski tumač).
- If you sign a contract before a Serbian public notary (javni beležnik) and do not speak Serbian, an interpreter takes part in the signing.
- Foreign citizens can in general acquire real estate in Serbia subject to reciprocity with their country; agricultural land is subject to special rules.
The exact form of the power of attorney depends on what it is for, so it is best to agree on the wording before you sign it.
How work on a property case proceeds
- Review of documents. The title deed, documents on how the property was acquired, the cadastral plan, earlier decisions of courts and authorities.
- Establishing the legal position. What is undisputed, what is disputed, which deadlines are running and what can be proved.
- Choosing the route. Agreement with the other side, an application to the competent authority, non-contentious or contentious court proceedings.
- Carrying it out. Conducting the proceedings and, at the end, registering the change in the cadastre, without which the matter is not finished.
What to prepare before the first conversation
- details of the property: the cadastral municipality and plot number, or the title deed if you have it
- contracts and other documents on the basis of which the property was acquired
- inheritance decisions (rešenje o nasleđivanju), if the property was inherited
- earlier judgments, decisions and records concerning the same property
- correspondence with the other side, if any
- sketches, the cadastral plan or photographs, when a boundary, a right of way or the use of the property is disputed
If some documents are missing or are only in Serbian, that is not an obstacle to a first conversation. It establishes what else needs to be obtained, and from whom.
Which authorities deal with property matters
As a rule, jurisdiction depends on where the property is located. For property in the Leskovac area, these are the Basic Court in Leskovac (Osnovni sud u Leskovcu) and the Leskovac Real Estate Cadastre Office (Služba za katastar nepokretnosti Leskovac). Contracts on the transfer of real estate are certified by a public notary in whose official area the property is located.
Frequently asked questions
Am I the owner as soon as I sign a purchase contract?
No. The contract is the legal basis, and ownership of real estate is acquired on registration in the Real Estate Cadastre. This is why the contract contains the seller's consent to registration, and why it is important to check that the registration has actually been made.
Can a co-owner sell their share without the consent of the others?
A co-owner may dispose of their share. With real estate, the other co-owners have a right of pre-emption, so the share must first be offered to them on the same terms on which it would be sold to a third party.
What if the co-owners do not agree on partition?
Then the partition is carried out by the court in non-contentious proceedings. If the property can be physically divided, each co-owner receives their part. If it cannot, the property is sold and the price is divided in proportion to the shares.
Related topics
Legal sources
- Law on the Fundamentals of Property Relations (Zakon o osnovama svojinskopravnih odnosa)
- Law on Real Estate Transactions (Zakon o prometu nepokretnosti)
- Law on the Procedure for Registration in the Real Estate and Infrastructure Cadastre (Zakon o postupku upisa u katastar nepokretnosti i katastar infrastrukture)
- Law on State Survey and Cadastre (Zakon o državnom premeru i katastru)
- Law on Inheritance (Zakon o nasleđivanju)
- Law on Non-Contentious Proceedings (Zakon o vanparničnom postupku)
- Law of Obligations (Zakon o obligacionim odnosima)
- Law on Public Notaries (Zakon o javnom beležništvu)