The Union of Municipalities of Montenegro has submitted an initiative for amendments and supplements to the Law on the Legalization of Illegal Buildings, with the aim of improving its implementation in practice and ensuring a greater degree of legal certainty for citizens, while fully respecting the basic solutions and objectives of the current law.
The Secretary of the Committee for Spatial Planning of the Union of Municipalities of Montenegro, Marija Kljajić, pointed out that the Initiative is based on the need for additional harmonization of certain legal provisions and their adaptation to the real circumstances on the ground, based on the successful cooperation between the Ministry of Spatial Planning, Urbanism and State Property and the Union of Municipalities of Montenegro in this field.
“A special part of the initiative concerns amendments to the provisions regulating the distance of buildings from the boundary of the neighboring cadastral parcel. It has been proposed that the special conditions regarding distance apply exclusively to buildings with a net area of over 500 m², while for buildings up to that size legalization would be allowed without that restriction. Such a solution is based on the fact that in the vast majority of cases these are buildings that were constructed many years or decades ago, whose position cannot be changed without significant technical and financial consequences, and which in practice do not constitute an obstacle nor endanger neighboring parcels,” Kljajić pointed out.
The Initiative also proposes the deletion of provisions that envisage the formation of municipal commissions for on-site inspection of illegal buildings and verification of data from geodetic reports. The control of the accuracy of geodetic reports is already regulated by the applicable regulations and falls under the competence of the geodetic inspection, so the proposed amendments avoid duplication of procedures and additional administrative burden on local self-governments.
“A special segment of the initiative relates to extending the statutory deadlines, bearing in mind the objective circumstances that have slowed down the implementation of the law. It has been proposed that the deadline for initiating the procedure for registering illegal buildings in the real estate cadastre be extended from six to eighteen months from the date the law enters into force. It has also been proposed to extend the deadline for establishing the register of illegal buildings from six to thirty-six months, the deadline for forming municipal commissions for the inventory of illegal buildings from thirty days to twelve months, as well as the deadline for selecting geodetic organizations from six to twenty-four months,” Kljajić emphasized.
Kljajić believes that the proposed amendments are in the interest of citizens, local self-governments, and the state.
“The ultimate goal of the initiative is to achieve the purpose for which the law was adopted in the first place—the legalization of all existing buildings and the establishment of a high-quality and reliable record of the actual situation on the ground when it comes to the construction of buildings,” Kljajić concluded.
