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You may own some Czech property you are not aware of. Time is running out - until the end of the year.

Do you have any real estate in the Czech Republic? Or do you have Czech roots and belong to the heirs of such land? Are you sure that you are correctly registered in the cadastre? If not, and you do not correct it by the end of the year, you will lose the land irretrievably - it will be forfeited to the Czech state.

As of July 1, 2023, there were a total of 334,712 properties with unknown owners registered in the State Administration of Land Surveying and Cadastre of the Czech Republic. The majority of these assets consist of land, with their values often reaching millions of Czech Koruna (CZK). You might be the owner of some of them.

In accordance with the new Civil Code, 2023 is the last year you can claim ownership of a property with an unknown owner. Therefore, the Office for Representation of the State in Property Matters recommends that everyone check the list of insufficiently identified property owners and address the situation as soon as possible. Otherwise, you might permanently lose your property.

Insufficiently identified owners
A property is considered to have an insufficiently identified owner if a) the owner is either completely unknown, with no information available in the cadastre, or b) if the owner cannot be unequivocally identified, such as when the date of birth or address is missing.

Given its historical context, this situation is quite specific to the Czech Republic. Many people lost interest in their properties during the forced collectivization in the previous regime. Most of the errors originate from the period between 1948 and 1989. Insufficiently identified properties often belong to the heirs of individuals who emigrated during the previous regime.

You can request a correction
As stated by the Office for Representation of the State in Property Matters: "According to the Cadastre Act, it is the duty of every property owner to keep the data in the real estate cadastre in line with reality." The correction of the issue of an insufficiently identified property owner can be initiated by the owners themselves. The owner must provide evidence of their ownership to the cadastre office in the manner prescribed by law.

If all the necessary information is not provided in the cadastre, the property is considered abandoned, and according to § 1045 of the new Civil Code (89/2012 Coll.): "(2) An abandoned immovable thing shall become the property of the state." If you do not want your entitled properties to become state-owned, you must register them by December 31, 2023.