Illegal properties in Serbia: NALED proposes mass legalization of property.

Half of the real estate in Serbia is not registered in the cadastre and is not on the regulated market. The National Alliance for Local Economic Development (NALED) believes that the solution to this problem will be mass legalization of properties. NALED points out that the data on unregistered properties are based on official data from the State Geodetic Service (RGZ).

"We have two million illegal properties and another 2.7 million that are not registered in the cadastre for various reasons.

He said NALED proposes that mass legalization should be accompanied by clear measures to discourage further illegal construction.

"For the second group of properties, it is necessary to involve the legal profession and create special commissions that will consolidate and verify old incomplete documentation in order to register all properties on its basis," Vasiljevic emphasized.

The new NALED study, carried out with the support of the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida), also offers solutions on legalization of illegally built objects, improvement of land consolidation and expropriation procedures, digitalization of urban planning''through the introduction of the eProstor system, lien rights, state property management, real estate taxation, solving problems related to cooperative land and other procedures.

The study also suggests the creation of a state real estate fund (land bank) among the proposed measures. According to international standards, the aim is to carry out land replacement in the process of consolidation and expropriation whenever possible, and to introduce a single central body that will carry out replacement, purchase and sale procedures.

There is also an urgent need for full digitalization of the preparation of spatial and urban plans through the introduction of the eProstor system, so that the whole process is more efficient and citizens and''businesses could respond and influence decisions related to construction in their community in a timely manner.

In this way, institutions will be able to electronically exchange information, give comments, issue requirements and approvals and simultaneously work on plans, which will significantly speed up the process of adopting documents, as they work in parallel in one system, instead of waiting for months for each other to launch their part of the work.

Besides digitalizing and streamlining the above procedures, the study notes that it is necessary to work on improving the taxation system through a more efficient collection of tax on rental income and the introduction of a tax on general "world" real estate, which will