Registering a house built before 1968 in Croatia

Sebastijan Sekulić, PhD, chartered geodetic engineer

Why 15 February 1968 matters

Buildings erected before that date are deemed built under a final building permit — by force of law. Registering them in the cadastre and land registry requires no legalization, only proof of age: the certificate of the time of construction.

How the age of a building is proven

  • If the cadastral office holds the building in its records (old maps and surveys), it issues the certificate directly from its data.
  • If no records exist, the competent administrative body issues the certificate based on an as-built survey and other evidence.
  • Old photographs, invoices, census records and similar documentation can serve as supporting evidence.

The registration procedure

  1. 1Records check — we establish what the cadastre and land registry already hold about the building and parcel.
  2. 2Obtaining the certificate of construction time — we prepare the required surveys and the application.
  3. 3Building registration survey — fieldwork and preparation of the survey report.
  4. 4Implementation — registration in the cadastre and, ex officio, in the land registry.

And if the house is newer?

For buildings erected after 15 February 1968 without a permit, the route is legalization — under the new 2026 law, applications are accepted with no deadline. In both cases we first check the records free of charge and propose the fastest path to a clean registration.

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