Selected changes introduced by Cadastral Act Amendment

From the beginning of October, Act no. 212/2018 Coll. (hereinafter as "Amendment"), amending Act No. 162/1995 Coll. on Cadastre of Real Estate and on Registration of Ownership and Other Real Estate Rights (hereinafter as "Cadastral Act") comes into force. Selected changes of the Cadastral Act are related to:

1. Requirements of application to the Cadastre and changes in cadastral proceedings

Amendment brings new statutory requirements of the application to the Cadastre on registration the ownership of real estate.

Besides current requirements (identification of parties, identification of legal action and identification of competent public authority) it is necessary inter alia to identify the transferred real estate and identifying the size of a co-ownership share, even though these information are directly stipulated in the annexes of the application.

The specification of application annexes is also questionable because the previous clear specification of annexes was replaced by the term “documents with relevancy to the cadastral proceedings”.

In case of transfer of real estate when one of the parties is legal person, it is necessary to enclose affidavit proving that conditions under Article 59a of Commercial Code are met (the obligation of define value of transferred real estate by expert and publishing this in Collection of deeds) or affidavit that this requirements do not apply to this legal person.

A positive aspect of the Amendment is that there is no need to attach a geometric plan to the application, the number of its official verification is sufficient.

According to the new legislation, the obvious mistakes in counting or writing of the contracts may no longer be resolved by a clause signed by the parties directly at the district office, but by a separate addendum to the contract.

2. Cadastral data

According to Amendment, the Cadastre information system will record the prices of all real estates. However, only selected entities will have access to this information (e.g. owner, expert and relevant government authorities).

The Amendment introduces a new institute called “List of the real estates”, enabling to create an inventory of all real estate owned by one person in the territory of the Slovak Republic. The right to obtain such property listings in relation to one person shall also have selected entities (e.g. bankruptcy trustee, notary).

The Amendment introduces a new definition of buildings to be recorded in the Cadastre. Under the new legal regulation, only the buildings that are bounded by the perimeter walls and the roof structure are recorded in the Cadastre.

3. Statutory Period

According to the Amendment, the statutory period for deletion of the pledge from the Cadastre shall be shortened significantly from 60 days to 5 business days from the date of the initiation of proceedings.

If the application for registration of the record is submitted by the electronic mean, the period for the registration shall be shortened from the 60 days to 30 days from the day of delivery the application for registration of the record to the electronic mailbox of the Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre Authority of the Slovak Republic (GCCA SR).

In order to ensure the compliance with the statutory deadlines for making decisions, the Amendment introduces a new competence of the GCCA SR chairman to decide for a specified time and in the determined proceedings about their assignment for the decision to another district office.

4. Correction of errors in cadastral operate

The Amendment introduces significant changes in the procedure for correcting errors in the cadastral operate. Not only the definition of procedure itself being changed, but also the possibilities of applying this procedure to different situations. In the framework of the procedure for correction of errors, the district office is authorized to harmonize cadastre data if, for example, it is in contradiction with the decision to authorize the deposit, the public document or any other document on the basis of which registration was made, the erroneously displayed land borders, the multiple ownership and others.

Some procedures for correcting an error are not governed by the Administration Code (e.g, the procedure for correcting the errors concerning the area and the erroneous plot of the register "E"). In this case, the district office shall not issue a decision but will only issue a protocol. In the case of proceedings under the Administrative Procedure Code, the District Office shall issue an administrative decision.