Bosnia and Herzegovina

Registering Property in

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Listed below is a detailed summary of the steps, time and cost involved in registering property, assuming a standardized case of an entrepreneur who wants to purchase land and a building that is already registered and free of title dispute.

The information appearing on this page was collected as part of the Doing Business project, which measures and compares regulations relevant to the life cycle of a small- to medium-sized domestic business in 183 economies. The most recent round of data collection for the project was completed in June 2011.

  • Standard Property Transfer

  • Property Value: BAM 340,154.05
  • City: Sarajevo

About This Topic

To see indicator data for all economies, see the Registering Property page. To see how economies rank, see the Rankings page.

No. Procedure Time to Complete Associated Costs
* 1 Obtain a land registry extract as proof of ownership

The seller requests and obtains the land registry excerpt from a competent court land registry office as the proof of ownership and to check the property against encumbrances. In practice, the excerpt must be obtained by the seller before starting the transaction formally. This information can also be obtained online (www.oss.ba http://80.65.160.22/LarisLight/) but need to be obtained in hard copy and be sealed to have legal validity. The seller may hire a lawyer to perform this task. The lawyer fee would be about BAM 90.
The Court Tax is BAM 10 per page. Typically, an extract for a property with no encumbrances would have 3 pages, one of which would describe the property and the land plot number, second one would have the information on ownership and third on encumbrances.

Agency: Municipal Court of Sarajevo (Land Registry Office) 		1 day BAM 10 per page (about 3 pages)
* 2 Parties obtain the court extract certifying the person authorized to act on behalf of each company

Both the seller and the buyer submit the request for obtaining the court extract certifying the person authorized to act on behalf of each company to the court that keeps the Registry of Commercial Companies. They may hire a lawyer to perform this task.
The parties have to provide the set of registration documents, which prove that the person who will sign on behalf of the company is authorized to do it.
The Court tax is BAM 8 for the Request + BAM 10 per page for the Court Extract. Each Court Extract contains approximately 4-5 pages. The lawyer fee would be about BAM 90.

Agency: Municipal Court of Sarajevo 		10 days (simultaneous with procedure 1) BAM 8 (each request) + BAM 10 per page (Court Extract, about 4-5 pages each)
3 Notarization of the sale-purchase agreement

The law on Notary of the Federal Republic of Bosnia & Herzegovina that passed in 2002 and became applicable in May 2007 prescribes notaries as the competent authority in the process of transferring a real estate or acquiring the ownership rights over the same or other real rights. According to the law, the purchase agreement of the real estate must be prepared as a notary deed. The cost of the procedure of notarization of the sale-purchase agreement depends on the value of the real estate at the time of purchase. Parties provide the notary with the land registry excerpt (obtained in Procedure 1) and well as with a court excerpt (obtained in Procedure 2). The presence of both parties is necessary at the notary's office or verification of the signatures should be based on a special power of notary. The notary needs to be provided with the following documents:

- the land registry excerpt as well as the copy of the cadastre plan proving the ownership over the property;
- the extract from the company’s court registry certifying the person is authorized to act on behalf on the company and to sign the purchase agreement;
- the approval of the founder (i.e. the General Assembly or Supervisory Board if applicable) for selling the property in case that the value of the property exceeds the amount of 1/3 of the company’s book value.

The notary fee depends on the value of the property and are set in the Federation of B&H Official Gazzete no. 71/07) as follows:

Value of property notary fees in
points
from BAM to BAM

0 1.000,00 120
1.001,00 2.500,00 180
2.501,00 5.000,00 250
5.001,00 10.000,00 300
10.001,00 20.000,00 400
20.001,00 30.000,00 500
30.001,00 40.000,00 550
40.001,00 50.000,00 600
50.001,00 60.000,00 650
60.001,00 80.000,00 700
80.001,00 100.000,00 750
100.001,00 150.000,00 850
150.001,00 200.000,00 900
200.001,00 250.000,00 1.000
250.001,00 300.000,00 1.200
300.001,00 400.000,00 1.400
400.001,00 500.000,00 1.600
500.001,00 750.000,00 2.000
750.001,00 1.000.000,00 2.500

The value of point is 0,50 BAM + 17% VAT


Agency: Notary 		1 day 700 BAM
4 Submit a request for evaluation of the property regarding tax payments

Parties file the request for the evaluation of the real estate regarding the payment of the tax for the transfer of the ownership on real estates at the competent municipal Tax Authority.
The deadline for filing the request is 15 days from the verification of signatures on the sale agreement. This procedure can be done by a lawyer or by the buyer and/or the seller.

The documentation shall include:
Copy of sale contract (obtained after Procedure 3)

Agency: Municipal Tax Authority 		1 day no cost
5 On-site inspection of the property

Upon submission of the purchase agreement the tax office commission performs on-site inspection of the real estate and takes notes from that inspection. Based on the notes, the tax office adopts an official decision on tax duty of the tax payer (in practice it is always the buyer).


Agency: Tax Office Commission 		5-15 days no cost
6 Payment of the transfer tax at a commercial bank

The transfer tax is paid, usually by the buyer, at a commercial bank in favor of the municipal budget. Following an amendment to the Law on Transfer Tax of the Real Estates and Rights as published in the Official Gazette of Canton Sarajevo on March 31st, 2005, the transfer tax of 5% came into effect on April 8th, 2005.
The tax has to be paid according to the tax authority's instructions within 15 days from receiving payment instructions from the tax authority.

Agency: Commercial Bank 		1 day 5% of property value (transfer tax)
7 Apply for registration at the Land Registry

Parties submit the application and other documentation for the transfer of the ownership to the competent court land registry office. The registration of the transfer of ownership is handled by the authorized court officer. Time length of the procedure is not prescribed by the law. However, the procedure can last less than indicated above in case the party sends the urgency letter, especially in case of larger investments, explaining the grounds for such urgency, which happens often in practice. Computerization efforts at the Municipal Court in the past years have significantly sped up the process of registration. The land registry will forward information to the Cadastre.

The documentation shall include:
Purchase agreement
Certificate of tax payment (obtained in Procedure 6)

Agency: Municipal Court of Sarajevo (Land Registry Office) 		9 days BAM 10 on request + BAM 50 (court tax)
* Takes place simultaneously with another procedure.
Explore Economy Data