To optimally maintain your property value and to successfully sell the property on the real estate market, you need to arrange all property related documentation. Whereas those who have found their new property, and to protect themselves from possible complications in the future, need to explore all the information that is available on the property.
Baiba Kalnina
, Baltic Sotheby's International Realty real
estate management service representative, provides valuable
recommendations, which you should know about the status of ownership
rights.
1. Registration in the Land Register
Information about the property can be seen in the publicly accessible
Land Register (www.zemesgramata.lv). The owners are issued the
Land Certificate (in paper format), however, all the current
information can be viewed in the state unified computerized Land
Register, which is considered the central database, from which
information on all properties entered in the Land Register in Latvia
is disseminated. In the Land Register you can see both, who is the
current owner of the property, if this property is encumbered, and
other data. It gives an overall picture on the property and allows
avoiding problems in the future as, for example, purchasing a
different property than the initially planned from a dishonest
property seller.
2. Encumbrances
One should definitely
explore, whether and what kind of encumbrances are imposed on the
property. By becoming acquainted with the property encumbrances in the
Land Register compartment, you will be informed about them and will
have a better insight on further use of your property, and whether
these encumbrances will restrict your activities. The Land Register
compartment of the property has four parts, in which information is
recorded on: 1) the property, 2) the owner of the property, 3)
encumbrances imposed on this property and 4) debts of the real
estate.
The encumbrances imposed on the real estate can
be seen in the parts 3 and 4 of the Land Register compartment. In the
third part, rights in rem are recorded, where the most common rights
are rental (lease) rights, whereas in the part 4 - the rights of
pledge.
Widely observed encumbrances are a variety of
utilities (water, gas, sewerage communications on the land,
telecommunications encumbrances). One shall consider that, for
example, the Law on Telecommunications protects these communications,
and the owner cannot liquidate these connections only because they are
interfering. Also, very common encumbrances are different servitude
(road, water, etc.) encumbrances. A servitude is an encumbrance
imposed on one property and serving for another property. It is
recorded in the compartment of the Land Register and, if it serves in
favour of someone, it is binding upon the owner and these obligations
shall be fulfilled.
On the website Latvija.lv and in the
Office of Citizenship and Migration Affairs, it is necessary to verify
the records on the persons declared in the particular property. This
information is necessary before acquiring the property, as not only
unwanted tenants - natural persons, but also registered legal entities
can cause concern to the new owner. A statement on the persons
declared in the property can be received by the owner of the property,
whereas the addresses of the legal entities can be found in the
Enterprise Register of the Republic of Latvia.
If you
want to buy a land plot, you also need to investigate so called
possible future encumbrances that can be found in the Territory
Development Plan of each municipality, which shows the intended use of
this territory. This allows to verify, for example, that there is no
planned industrial or commercial building at the place, where
construction of private house is planned, or if there is no highway
planned across your land plot, etc. Such information - a statement
from the Construction Board - may be asked to provide from the seller
of the property, or you can get acquainted with the information
available in the local governments.
3. Main property documentation: land border plan, cadastral
survey (inventory) case
In the cadastre system
maintained by the State Land Service – the portal Kadastrs.lv the main
data on real estate, land units, buildings (structures), groups of
premises, parts of land units and their data, as well as owners, legal
holders, users and tenants is registered and updated. By logging into
this site and using the e-service “My data in cadastre“, you can find
information about your property on portals Latvija.lv and
Epakalpojumi.lv. You can see both the original
documents, the cadastral value of any property, and order information
electronically. There will be building site schemes, actual land
plans, and other information that must be checked, especially when you
are buying a property. The most common problems encountered in
practice are: non-existent structures that are no longer existing
“in the nature“ (they are demolished, but their status is
not legalized) appear in the land boundary plan. There have been cases
when buildings of another owner
are located on the land plot of the owner, which are not fixed
in the Land Register compartment, but are indicated in the cadastral
system. Such buildings of another owner can cause heavy burden for the
new owner.
The information in this cadastral system
should definitely be checked and arranged, because people who are
buying properties are becoming more aware and ask for correct, factual
information, not to mention the banks that pay huge attention to this
information when granting mortgage loans, and this information can be
decisive when issuing a loan.
4. Compliance of
the layout of buildings and structures and planning with the
cadastral survey case
Having acquainted oneself with
the information found in the cadastral system, a discrepancy between
the property “as is“ and the status of the property that is
fixed “on paper“ is often stated. It is especially inherent
to the properties of apartments and private houses that have undergone
various alterations and improvements, however, they have not been
approved and registered afterwards. Therefore, this issue should be
settled so that the “as is“ situation is also recorded in
the inventory file.
5. Commissioning of the
property
In this country it is a common problem that a
great number of people live in a non-commissioned property. This is
not about apartment buildings, but about transformed apartments and
especially — private houses.
This issue needs to be resolved in order to put all property
documents in order. If the reconstruction of a property is being
planned (or has already taken place), it must be taken into account
that the development of a project is needed, then the construction
itself (or conditional construction, if it has already taken place)
should be carried out, which is followed by stock-taking and
commissioning. Afterwards, all changes must be recorded in the
cadastral system of the State Land Service and in the Land
Register.
It should be noted that banks, when issuing a loan, may
set certain deadlines for commissioning, but in case of failing to
comply with them may impose sanctions.
“There was a
saying in a classical Latvian movie:“ We are fine.. My documents
are in a good order“. Why is it important to put the entire
property documentation in order? First of all, for the owner to feel
safe that everything with the property is all right. Actually, it is
an improvement of property's liquidity, which in the future will make
the sale of the property much more successful if such a need arises.
Secondly, if the property is sold, the new owner will not have to deal
with potential property-related problems, which are both time
consuming and costly. The above five steps form a classical scheme
that should be followed to make sure that everything is in order with
the property documentation, but it should be taken into account that
there can be a lot of nuances for each property individually, so it is
advisable to consult a professional who knows the real estate domain
and can help avoid different “underwater stones““, says
Baiba Kalnina, representative of Baltic Sothebys International Realty
Real Estate Management Service.<br /> <br /> Being aware that<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>the study of property
documentation is both time consuming and quite nuanced and in order to
provide its customers with the expertise of their field professionals,
Baltic Sotheby
s International Realty Real Estate Management service
providers offer to take care of all the needs of the existing property
documentation as well as explore and provide customers with all
information about the property they intend to purchase.
If you need advice
on the status of your property rights or the settlement of legal
issues, we kindly ask you to write to [email protected] or call
+371 29 259 025.