Hungary

Registering Property in

Hungary

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: HUF 128,595,268.15
  • City: Budapest

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No. Procedure Time to Complete Associated Costs
1 Obtain a certified title record at the Land Registry Office

Obtain an original certified title sheet folio at the Land Registry Office to check the current data of the property. The title sheet folio includes information on liens and outstanding taxes. According to the Hungarian law, the issue of title sheet folio is valid within 30 days the date of signing of the contract.
Due to the amendment of the land registry rules, the fee of the hard copy of a certified title record was increased to HUF 6,250. Since 1 January 2010 the request for electronic land registry sheet is also possible for HUF 3,600 for certified sheet and for HUF 1,000 uncertified sheet. Please note that the printed form of the electronic certified sheet is not considered as certified land registry sheet.

Agency: Land Registry Office 		1 day HUF 3,600
2 The sale and purchase agreement is signed by a lawyer

After the negotiations between parties, a written sale and purchase agreement is required, and each page has to be initialed/signed by the parties. The contract becomes valid by the countersignature of a lawyer (signature, stamp and dry stamp on each page). The countersignature certifies the identity of the signing parties and that the content of the agreement is in accordance with the legal regulations and the will of the parties.
1 day 1% of the purchase price (lawyer’s fees) – subject to the parties’ agreement
3 Obtain the extract of the purchaser from the Court of Registry

An extract of the purchaser from the commercial registry must be obtained. With the data indicated in the extract the officer can check that the legal entity really exists and that the manager is really entitled to sign for the company. The commercial register is public, so anybody can go there and ask for a company extract. For real estate sales, if the purchaser is a legal entity, it is obliged to submit an extended company extract. The extract has to contain the deleted and actual data of the company, and may not be issued earlier than 30 days preceding the sale. It means that if a company has a fresh extract in its files from former legal relationships, it may use that for this purpose, but since the extract is submitted to the land registry office, it has to get a new one for other purposes. Extracts may be obtained from notary publics and the ministry of justice as well. The cost varies according to the issuing agencies and the length of the extract. Generally, the cost is between HUF 3,000 and 6,000.


Agency: Commercial Registry 		1 day HUF 5,000
4 Register the title at the Land Registry Office

Since January 1st 2008 there are three Land Registry Offices operating in Budapest. Each of them is competent on different districts in Budapest i.e. the application for registering any change regarding a given property shall be submitted to the Land Registry Office having competence over the district the real property is located in. A new fast-track procedure has been introduced to reduce the registration time at the Land Registry for a higher registration fee of HUF 16,000. The registration fees for the regular procedure is HUF 6000 as a result of the Act 122 of 2006, effective February,4 2007. As of January 2006, it is possible to retrieve a standardized application form online, at: www.takarnet.hu.
The Registry office only accepts this standard form. Once the application has been submitted to the land registry office, one set of the documents are forwarded to the stamp duty office. The purchaser then receives a letter from the stamp duty office and will pay stamp duty by postal check or bank transfer.

Note: Usually, if the purchaser does not pay the full purchase price at the signing of the contract, the vendor retains its ownership. (Such retention may be registered until the payment of the full purchase price). The application may request the registration of the sale with retention of ownership, or the registration of title. As of a regulation issued in January 2006, the seller may declare that he/she will request registration of the purchaser's title at a certain date but no later than 6 months from the date of the agreement. During this time period the registration is pending and no other registrations or applications may be fulfilled regarding the property. In the event that the land registry office does not receive the consent from the owner of the property, the pending application is deleted. The fact of sale with retention of ownership is indicated on a side note in 24 hours from the submission. This means that some kind of application was submitted with regard to the property but it was not judged by the land registry office yet (not registered, not refused). For sales with retention of ownership, a declaration has to be submitted stating that the title may be registered, simultaneously with the deletion of the retention of ownership. Following the submission of the declaration, a new side note will be indicated, and the title of the purchaser will be registered.
Transfers of property might be subject to a 20% VAT.

As of 2010, the general duty rate on the transfer of property for consideration was reduced to 4% from 10% on up to HUF 1 billion in sales value.
The documentation shall include:
The standardized application form;
Two original copies and one photocopy of the contract;
Original extract of the purchaser from the commercial register;
Specimen of signature of the executive officer who has signed the contract (issued by a notary public) and a copy of the latest Property Register Card (to be obtained from the City Survey Department) to indicate poroperty does not belong to the Government;
Copy of the Municipal Tax bill to indicate the year in which the building was constructed;
No Objection Certificate of permission from the Urban Land Ceiling Department (to be obtained from the Talati Office)

Agency: Land Registry Office 		9-19 calendar days (expedited procedure) or 30-60 days (regular procedure) 4% of property value (Stamp duty) up to value HUF 1 billion (or 2% for values above with a cap of HUF 200 million) + HUF 16,600 (registration fee, expedited procedure), or HUF 6,600 (registration fee, regular procedure)
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