National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia adopted the Law amending the Law on Registration Procedure with the Cadastre of Real Estate and Utilities (“the Law”), which will be fully in force as of 31 March 2020.

The amendments to the Law should accelerate the delivery of decisions to the parties and increase legal certainty of registration finality, as well as accelerate the overall procedure of entry into the real estate cadastre and reduce its costs.

Another reason for amendments to the Law was the alignment of certain provisions of the Law with other regulations relevant for the activities of the Republic Geodetic Authority (“RGA”), such as the Law on Planning and Construction and the Law on Legalisation of Buildings.

Key novelties refer to the delivery of decisions to the clients.

Namely, the decisions of the cadastre will be delivered in three ways:

• The decision will be for the first time delivered in form of an e-document, through single electronic mailbox, in accordance with the law regulating e-administration;
• The individual without an electronic mailbox will receive the decision in form of printed copy of the electronic document, certified according to the law regulating e-administration, by registered mail delivered through postal service.

If mailman fails to deliver the decision, a notice shall be left to the client that the decision may be collected at the post office within 15 days, instead of 24 hours, which was the case so far.

The notice will also contain the information about the date of publication of the decision on the RGA website, legal redress stating that, in case of failure to collect the mail, the decision shall be considered delivered 30 days after that date, as well as the link where the decision can be downloaded from.

• On the date of dispatch of the decision, it shall be published on the RGA website, which means that the applicants for real estate registration will be able to find it according to the case number. The 30-day deadline until the decision becomes final will start from the publishing of the decision on the website.

RGA is obliged to establish and maintain the real estate notice board on its website, as well as to ensure permanent and free-of-charge availability of the decisions published on the notice board, in a manner that does not infringe personal data protection.

Following the introduction of e-desk for submission of applications, which has been available to attorneys besides public notaries, courts and public enforcement officers as of 2 March 2020, it is expected that the introduction of electronic delivery of decisions will additionally contribute to the efficiency of administration and finalisation of administrative procedures before RGA. However, the real progress will be achieved only if the newly-established system guarantees resistance to unauthorised access and a high level of data protection.

This article is to be considered as exclusively informative, with no intention to provide legal advice.
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