Electronic Access To Information From Real Estate Registers

This article was originally published in the schoenherr roadmap'10 - if you would like to receive a complimentary copy of this publication, please visit: http://www.schoenherr.eu/roadmap.

The days of queuing at the courts and at surveying and mapping authorities to get information about Slovenian real estate are long gone. Now, when someone needs information when purchasing real estate, securing loans or making valuations, or simply wants to know if the neighbour owns the house he lives in, this can easily be done while sitting in front of a computer.

Real estate registers

The Slovenian land registration system is bifurcated. Basic real estate records are managed by the Surveying and Mapping Authority of the Republic of Slovenia (GURS). Land registers at district courts contain information on property rights and legal title. All of these records are interlinked: GURS uses information from the land register to source data on ownership, while the land registers use the GURS' information to identify real estate.

Remote electronic access

The legal basis is mainly the Real Estate Recording Act (Zakon o evidentiranju nepremicˇ nin; the Official Gazette of the Republic Slovenia No. 47/2006 ff) and the Rules on Types and Contents of Certificates from Geodetic Databases and on the Manner of Data Designation (Pravilnik o vrstah in vsebini potrdil iz zbirk geodetskih podatkov ter o nacˇ inu izkazovanja podatkov; the Official Gazette of the Republic of Slovenia 22/2007 ff). Remote electronic access to GURS provides easy access to public information on real estate kept in its registers. All the registers can be accessed free of charge at http://prostor.gov. si/emoneta/index.jsp.

The real estate data is kept in:

a (land) cadastre, which is a basic land register in which the land is defined by the plot situated within a cadastral municipality. It shows information on plot number, borders, area, owner, the actual use of land and land credit rating as well as land under the building. It also includes a graphical display of the land; a building cadastre, which is a basic register of buildings and parts of buildings; a real estate register, which is a database of all real estate in Slovenia, including information on land, buildings and its parts (including real estate that is not yet recorded in cadastres) as well as their owners. The information for this register, which is foreseen as the basis for the expected tax on real estate, was taken from the other...