The amendment of the cadastre law, effective as of 1st October 2018, will introduce certain changes in cadastre proceedings. The changes will affect parties of the cadastre proceedings filing motions to register purchase, sale or other acts with the land register. Some changes are to make the process easier, but some may represent an increase in bureaucracy for the parties and the administrative bodies. In addition, the aim of the amendment is to support establishment of a central information system of the cadastre.
The most important changes the cadastre law amendment introduces are as follows:
- New requisites of motions for cadastre proceedings
Opposite the previous and quite simple motion to register, the new legal regime will require more detailed identification of the proceedings parties, the legal act and the property. As a novelty, the subject of the motion to register will need to be all legal acts included in the contract and subject to the motion (e.g. transfer of ownership and the registration of easement).
- Motion without the obligation to attach plat map
Plat maps will no longer be obligatory attachments to the motions to register in case they serve to split or merge property or establish easement. It will be enough to provide sufficient identification of the plat map and the cadastre will check it up on its own. However, this concerns only plat maps which were certified after the law amendment had become effective. Plat maps certified up to 30th September 2018 still need to be attached to the motions.
- New attachments to motions to register
Despite declared attempts to simplify the process, it will be necessary to attach “new” attachments, as follows:
a) statutory declaration on meeting the conditions under Section 59 of the Commercial Code (transactions of over 10% of the registered capital of joint stock companies between associated persons) or confirming that the provisions shall not be applied;
b) appointment of an employees to represent a legal entity (other persons than the company members will be able to act on behalf of the employer); and
c) documents with evidence value for a motion to register process.
- Reducing the period for deletion of pledge right and for change registration
The period for deletion of pledge right has been reduced from 60 to 5 business days. When using the online form, the period for registering the change with the cadastre has been reduced from 60 to 30 days (however, this will be introduced only on 01.10.2019, as the provision on the online form to file a motion to register will become effective).
- Changes in requisites of easement registration
The easement obligor will have a new duty related to the property whose owner is not registered on the ownership certificate – the claimant is obliged to provide all documents to register the easement, as well as registering the ownership rights to the property.
- Correction of contract and mismatch of data
As a novelty, it will no longer be possible to rectify any typing and counting errors or other incorrect data in the contracts via a correction clause, but by a contract amendment only – duly signed (incl. notarial certification of the signature if required) by the contracting parties. However, this procedure will not be required to correct mismatches of the data with the reference register data (Register of Natural Persons, Register of Legal Entities, Entrepreneurs and Public Authorities etc.). In such case, the entry will be registered in line with the data in the respective register. This will eliminate dragged out proceedings due to mismatch in registered address and new address of the permanent residence or typing errors in data of the natural persons.
- Definition and conditions of registration of buildings, buildings under construction and flats under construction
The law amendment has introduced new definitions of buildings and the terms under which buildings, buildings under construction, flats and flats under construction can be registered with the cadastre. At the same time, the provision on underground services and small construction objects being generally not be registered with the cadastre has been dropped from the law.
- Guardian of property ownership certificate
After the law amendment becomes effective, anyone will be able to monitor any changes to the ownership certificate online and receive automatically generated notifications on the changes. This service will be charged, though.
- List of property
The law amendment introduces a new type of cadastre document – the list of property. The list will contain all property owned by a person (administrator, tenant or pledge creditor). It will cover property all over the territory of Slovakia, but it will be possible to limit the search for one region, district, or cadastral community, too. This service will be charged and only the owner or an authorised person will be able to apply for it. It will be provided in digital form and serve for informative purposes.
- Records of property prices
The cadastre will maintain the prices of all registered property. Up till now, only records on farm land have been available. However, only the owner of the property and various state bodies, experts and persons drawing price maps will have access to data on property prices.
- Other changes
The law amendment has introduced cadastre centralisation, as it is going to be administered by the Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre Authority of the Slovak Republic (ÚGKK SR) centrally instead of by the respective district offices locally.
The law has also introduced the obligation of municipalities to register data on houses, apartment houses and flats after their final inspection directly with the cadastre information system. The law amendment also deals with the issue of duplicity or multiple ownership in administrative body proceedings, as well as the cadastre centralisation.
The access to files of documents will remain limited. The group of owners and their legal predecessors will be expanded by any legal successors, as well as the ÚGKK SR employees, bankruptcy administrators, notaries, courts, prosecutors’ offices, the Police Force, the National Security Authority, the SIS, and the Military Intelligence. It will be possible to apply for information with any of the authorities only if the information is registered and available digitally.
Dominika Schweighoferová, Patrícia Adamíková