The rules on foreigners’ right to acquire ownership of agricultural land in Slovenian, Croatian and Serbian law

Abstract

The paper gives an overview of the rules on the acquisition of ownership of agricultural land by foreigners in Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia. Slovenia and Croatia initiated their accession to the European Union at different times and under different conditions, while Serbia is not yet a member state of the Union, but has been a candidate country for several years, and the harmonization of its national law with the acquis communautaire has been under way for some time. These circumstances determine the right of foreigners, in particular natural persons and legal entities from the European Union, to acquire ownership of agricultural land in these countries. In Slovenia non-EU natural persons and legal entities cannot acquire ownership of agricultural land. In contrast, Slovenia opened its real estate market rather early to EU citizens and legal entities. Only the Association Agreement provided for a transitional period of four years during which they could not acquire ownership of agricultural land. From 2003 onwards, citizens and legal entities from the EU are entitled to acquire land ownership without restriction. The Accession Treaty prescribed no moratorium. Similarly to Slovenia, non-EU natural persons and legal entities may not acquire ownership of agricultural land in Croatia either. The Accession Treaty provided for a seven-year moratorium on the acquisition of ownership of agricultural land by EU citizens and legal entities. The primary moratorium expired on 30 June 2020. However, the EU Commission approved an extension of the moratorium for another three years. Thus, EU citizens and legal entities are still unable to acquire ownership of agricultural land until 30 June 2023. Foreigners’ right to acquire ownership of agricultural land is in general excluded in Serbian law as well. The Stabilization and Association Agreement from 2008 provided for the liberalization of the real estate and land markets for EU citizens and legal entities. However, in 2017 the Serbian legislature amended the Act on Agricultural Land only few days before the expiry of the moratorium on ownership included in the Stabilization and Association Agreement. Nominally, the amendments were intended to introduce explicit regulation on the right of EU citizens and legal entities to acquire ownership of agricultural land, as required by the Stabilization and Association Agreement. However, instead of extending the same conditions applicable to the domestic natural persons and legal entities to those from the EU, the legislator specified additional set of conditions applicable only to the latter. It, in fact, excludes legal entities from the right to acquire property, as they cannot be registered family farmers, and makes the right of natural persons subject to conditions that effectively exclude their acquisition of ownership by 1 September 2027 due to the calculation of deadlines.

Croatian land acquisition rules after the expiry of the EU moratorium

“…2 Indeed, some Member States had to significantly change their national rules on the position of natural and legal persons from other Member States when acquiring and using immovables in their territories. 3 Such reforms resulted in the existence of two parallel regimes of land acquisition rules: one (non-discriminatory) for domestic persons and those from other EU Member States and the other (discriminatory) for persons from non EU third countries. 1 A basic rule exists in legal transactions between nationals and legal persons of Member States involving real property that they must also be aimed at accomplishing EU goals and the efficient functioning of the internal market.…”

“…32, TFEU on the Acquisition of Property in Denmark). 3 For example, in the Republic of Austria, the competent regional states (Bundesländer) have amended their Laws on the Transfer of Land (Grundverkehrgesetze, Ausländergrunderwerbsgesetze) several times to harmonise them with EU laws, particularly following the moratorium to the application of the existing legislation regarding secondary residences for five years from the date of accession (Art. 70 In the process of accession to the EU, the Republic of Croatia was obliged to harmonise its land acquisition rules.…”