Press
Release ECE/ENV/99/10
Geneva, 23 November 1999
REAL-ESTATE TRANSACTIONS IN KOSOVO
WHEN YOUR
HOME IS NOT YOUR CASTLE
Imagine a world in which the
State vets the buyer of your home or makes it hard for you to obtain a mortgage because
you belong to the "wrong" ethnic group... Or a world where you have negotiated
the purchase of a new home, but you will never be able to prove that the transaction
actually went ahead, as there is no public authority to record it. This is the situation
reported by Mr. Jarmo Ratia, UN/ECE senior representative and focal point on
land administration issues in the Balkan region, after his recent fact-finding mission to
the province of Kosovo. Mr. Ratia is also due to visit Belgrade soon.
The UN/ECE secretariat designated Mr.
Jarmo Ratia, Director-General of Finland's National Land Survey, as the UN/ECE focal point
following the Economic Commission for Europe's pledge to help in the coordinated economic
reconstruction of Southeast Europe once the conflict in Yugoslavia was resolved.
During his mission he found that:
No formal real-estate transactions had
been registered between February and October 1999, as the deeds registration system was
not functioning, nor was the supporting cadastral system. New staff was appointed in the
cadastral and survey offices. After the conflict, they concentrated on trying to locate
the missing records.
Many transactions took place but could not
be registered in the court system or in the cadastral system, because the law banned the
sale of real property from Serbians to Kosovar Albanians. Most municipalities had been
enforcing this law since 1990.
During the conflict, many of the cadastral
and court book records were removed and sent to Serbia or other locations - in most cases
70% of the records have been removed, in some areas up to 90%.
In terms of land administration, the law
that most affected land administration between July 1989 and 1999 placed restrictions on
how distinct ethnic groups and legal persons could sell or lease real property, or grant
user rights to it or mortgages. All transactions had to be approved by the Ministry of
Finance in Serbia.
To overcome these difficulties, the United
Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN/ECE) is considering a long-term land
administration strategy for Kosovo for a period of up to 10 years. UN/ECE could promote
this strategy together with other United Nations organizations, in particular the United
Nations Centre for Human Settlements (HABITAT), which has a presence in Kosovo and with
which UN/ECE is already cooperating. The strategy's aims are to:
- Guarantee ownership and security of
tenure;
- Support land and property taxation;
- Provide security for credit;
- Develop and monitor land markets;
- Reduce land disputes;
- Facilitate land reform;
- Improve urban planning and infrastructure
development;
- Support environmental management;
- Produce statistical data.
Achieving this could help refugees and
displaced people return to their homes and re-establish their communities devastated by
conflict. It would also reassure potential investors.
For more information, please
contact:
Ms. Christina von Schweinichen,
Deputy Director
UN/ECE Environment and Human
Settlements Division
Palais des Nations, Office 340
CH - 1211 Geneva 10
Switzerland
Phone: (+41 22) 917 2388
Fax: (+41 22) 907 0107
E-mail: [email protected]