With the new changes in the work of the Cadastre, the choice of whether to collect and submit the documentation themselves or to seek the help of professional institutions has been abolished for citizens, since now registration in the cadastre will have to go through lawyers or geodetic organizations, who will charge for these services according to their tariffs. However, there are requests for which it is not mandatory to hire a lawyer, but citizens can submit them themselves.
Since October last year, citizens of Serbia can register in the cadastre exclusively digitally, with the professional support of lawyers or geodetic organizations.
The Republic Geodetic Institute (RGZ) explained that in this way, efficient registration in the cadastre will be enabled, with the correctness of documents checked by professional users. The disadvantage, however, is that applicants must pay professional users to do the work for them, which requires significant financial resources.
But you don’t need professional help for every service. Namely, there are requests for which it is not mandatory to hire a lawyer, but citizens can submit them themselves.
The Republic Geodetic Institute told Nova.rs that citizens can submit certain requests themselves, without needing a lawyer or a geodetic company.
“There are requests for which it is not mandatory to hire a lawyer, but citizens can submit them themselves, among which are the request to change the surname or registration number.” Through the ePrimedbe service, citizens can access the website https://info-centar.rgz.gov.rs/eprimedbe/form/ and submit the following types of requests for error correction completely free of charge: obvious typographical errors in the name, surname, place of residence, address or registration number, then possible errors, deficiencies and omissions in data on real estate and registered real rights on real estate, as well as a request to change the surname and place of residence for persons with registered JMBG, with the payment of a fee of 660 dinars”, they state.
After accessing the eRemarks service, citizens enter a text in the “complaint description” field requesting the correction of an error, after which the real estate cadastre office will create a case ex officio and make a decision, adds the RGZ.
“Work organization in RGZ is problematic”
Nebojša Pejčinović from the trade union “Nezavisnost” of the Republic Geodetic Institute tells Nova.rs that the organization of work in RGZ is somewhat problematic. He emphasizes that despite the fact that citizens can perform certain services themselves, practice often shows the opposite.
“Formally, you can make an appointment through the info center of the RGZ and go and ask, for example, for the correction of a name or registration number, but in practice it is an impossible mission.” First, you just have to get someone to contact you, so that he can make an appointment for you in one of the cadastres, since you are actually calling the central office in Belgrade, so they make an appointment for you. So it’s quite complicated and limited. The introduction of the electronic counter is good, but I believe that space must be left for parties who do not have the opportunity, for example people who live in villages, in the interior, where the cadastre is reduced to two people, to be able to make an appointment, but it made it quite complicated. And then people are instructed to go to a lawyer, and lawyers don’t work for nothing, of course.”
He emphasizes that in the work of RGZ, things change on a daily basis.
“Prior to this Law, the RGZ ex officio eliminated everything it saw as an omission in the registration in its databases. In recent years, employees have been forbidden to remove an observed error on their official duty, but a certain consent is required for this, literally if someone complains, it will be corrected. And now we have come to a situation: many people have documents from before the introduction of notary services, that is, those that are old and certified in courts, municipalities, and these data do not agree with the data entered in the database. And that’s where the biggest disagreements come when merging the land cadastre and land registers when the real estate cadastre base is formed. “We actually took ownership data from the land registers, and all the data concerning the plots themselves, their shapes, areas, and markings, were taken from the land cadastre,” he says.
In the meantime, since 2013, a digital cadastral plan has been created, which, as Nova.rs interlocutor explains, means that all plots, recalculated through the digital option, have changed their area by a meter or two.
“Some went to the plus, some to the minus.” And now you come to the point that it needs to be removed. The cadastre is now literally reduced to working with what comes from notaries, from these electronic items that are now distributed by lawyers and in the technical part of private geodetic agencies that provide data from the field about measurements, divisions…”, he points out.
On the other hand, lawyer Ivan Mijatov claims that in 95 percent of cases, when citizens themselves prepare documentation for submission or bring it to a lawyer, it is messy and incomplete.
“At first glance, someone could say: ‘What does a lawyer want me to do if I submit documentation for registration in the cadastre, I can do that myself?’ I responsibly claim, from my professional experience, that I submitted identical requests even before the changes to the law entered into force, and that in 95 percent of cases, when citizens prepare the documents for submission themselves or bring them to a lawyer, they are messy and incomplete . “Such numerous cases were filling up the cadastre and paralyzing the system on the one hand, and on the other hand they were slowing down the process of registration in the real estate cadastre,” he points out.
BONUS VIDEO: News in the work of the cadastre – A blow to the budget or acceleration of the procedure?
