After several attempts to legalise illegally built facilities in Serbia, the new Law on Legalisation entered into force on 27 November 2015 (Official Gazette of Republic of Serbia, no. 96/2015).
The adopted Law prescribes conditions, procedures and the method of legalisation for facilities constructed without a construction permit, however the Law does not generally apply to finalised facilities used without a usage permit. The subject of legalisation, under the newly adopted Law, can only be a fully constructed facility for which a legalisation request has been submitted in accordance with previous regulations by the required date, i.e. 29 January 2014, or a facility visible on satellite imagery of Serbia for 2015.
The legalisation procedure entails (i) a full listing of facilities from the listing commissions, formed by the local authorities, (ii) an issued decision on the demolition of the listed facilities, (iii) the suspension of demolition procedures, and (iv) the commencement of legalisation procedures for such facilities by the competent authorities ex officio. The Law clearly stipulates that the demolition of illegally constructed facilities cannot commence prior to the termination of the legalisation procedure.
In order to finally resolve the issue of illegally constructed facilities in Serbia, the Law has decreased the required documentation for the legalisation process, by reducing the amount of documentation required to report on existing status, which has now been limited to a report on current status with geodetic work survey. In addition to this, fees for legalisation have been significantly decreased in comparison to previous amounts.
