Frequently Asked Questions
1. How can I register my property? How do I get a property certificate?
2. I have a possession certificate, however it is not admitted as a valid document that proves the ownership of my property? What is the difference between a possession and a property certificate?
3. For some time now I am waiting for my property certificate. Why is the procedure so long? What is the dead line for the application to be completely processed?
4.When exactly will the citizens get faster and more efficient service from the Cadastre?
5.Why doesn’t SAGW perform operational field work, but the private geodetic companies do it? Why do the private surveying companies have such a higher price?
6. Does SAGW control the work of the private surveying companies?
7. Can the Cadastre protect me from affairs like Fikom?
8. A friend of mine said that in order to get the work done faster I should offer bribe to the clerk. Where can I report corruption and will it affect me?
9. Where can I get the information for the required documents for some cadastral service?
10 In my property certificate there is a mistake because there is a wrong name written as owner of a part of the property. I sent an appeal to SAGW, however it was denied. What can I do more to prove that the property is mine?
11. Does a physical person have the right to apply for denationalization?
12 What year were the first aero photographs made of land and buildings in Macedonia and
how many times has aero photography been made on the land and the buildings in Macedonia and in which years?
Answers
1. Question: How can I register my property? How do I get a property certificate?
Answer: In order to prove that you are the legal owner of some real estate (land, house, apartment, office premises…) you have to own a property certificate in which you legal rights of ownership of the real estate you own are registered, thus secured. The registration of your rights is done by the State Authority for Geodetic Works, through the Sector for Survey and Cadastre – Skopje and the 29 branch offices for survey and cadastre throughout the country and it can be done ex officio (free of charge registration) and at your request (with a fee). The procedure for free registration is simple – just respond to the invitation for public displaying of the data for your real estate and at the determined time, date and place bring all of the documents that will prove your ownership right. These documents are: contract (for sale and purchase, for gift, for exchange, for life time support and for division of property during ones life); a court verdict, a settlement or an inheritance decision; construction permit; construction-technical documentation with the plans or a deed. The documentation that you submit as proof for registering your right should be an original or verified with a notary. After viewing the documentation, if it is complete and correct and there are no legal obstacles, your property will be registered in the Real Estate Cadastre and after the legally determined dead line (30 to 60 days) you will be able to get your property certificate. If, for any reason, you do not respond to the invitation sent to you from SAGW and you have missed your free of charge property registration in the Real Estate Cadastre, or your property is registered in the Land Cadastre, and you want to register it in the Real Estate Cadastre in order to get a property certificate, you can exercise this right on the basis of your application along with the complete documentation that will prove the right of ownership and by paying a certain fee which is determined with a Schedule of Fees adopted by the Government of RM.
2. Question: I have a possession certificate, however it is not admitted as a valid document that proves the ownership of my property? What is the difference between a possession and a property certificate?
Answer: The property certificate is a document that contains all the real estate data regarding the real estate you own. This includes your rights, the history of changes of owners, and all of the existing constraints (mortgages, encumbrances, etc) that can influence further property transfers. The possession certificate does not contain all of this data and this is why for example the banks do not accept it as proof of ownership.
3. Question: For some time now I am waiting for my property certificate. Why is the procedure so long? What is the dead line for the application to be completely processed?
Answer: If the documentation that proves the right of ownership is complete and correct there are no additional obstacles from a property-legal character, that the Cadastre cannot influence (has no jurisdiction) to have removed, the legally determined dead line for registering some real estate in the Real Estate Cadastre and issuing a property certificate largely depends on objective factors like the validity of the documentation that proves the ownership, the need for going on sight in order to check the real situation with the real estate, as well as on the total number of submitted applications. The dead line for issuing the document can be shortened only if the work of the Cadastre (SAGW) depends on it. In a great deal of cases the procedure is prolonged for other factors (unresolved legal-property issues, etc.) that SAGW cannot influence because they are in the jurisdiction of other institutions, like for instance courts, second instance commissions, etc.
4.Question: When exactly will the citizens get faster and more efficient service from the Cadastre?
Answer: The employees from the State Authority for Geodetic Works (Cadastre) are intensely and seriously working on its modernization in order for it to grow into a professional, efficient and fast service for the citizens. For this purpose comprehensive reforms of the work procedures are in full strength, regarding customer relations, transparency, eliminating all possibilities for corruption. The plan is to have these reforms finalized by the second half of 2008. This does not mean that the citizens and the companies should wait by then in order to get fast and professional service from the Cadastre. The intention of all of the employees of the Cadastre is for the users to get fast and professional service within the defined legal jurisdiction and capacity that the institution currently has.
5.Question: Why doesn’t SAGW perform operational field work, but the private geodetic companies do it? Why do the private surveying companies have such a higher price?
Answer: The private surveying practice has been introduced to first of all more efficiently solve the problems of the citizens. The private authorized surveyors, in accordance with the law, are performing operational field work that refer to the establishment and maintenance of the survey and the real estate cadastre. Doing this work has mostly slowed down a large number of procedures. Their work comprises also the division and merger of parcels, photography of the changes made with the construction and further construction of the buildings, preparation of numerical data, preparation of geodetic reports for registration of rights and from geodetic works for specific use, as well as expert findings. By definition, the private sector has a much larger motive to quickly and efficiently do the field work because it will help complete a larger number of cases, and this would mean more income for them. The private surveyors charge a fee for their services. The amount of this fee is determined according to the size and complexity of the work, the distance and the field conditions. For each work they make a contract with the users of the geodetic service in which among other things the ways and dead lines for completing the work are defined, as well as the amount of the fee. The introduction of the private geodetic practice apart from being a direct benefit for the citizens is also a reduction of the number of employees in the state administration, which means saving funds from the central budget, integrating European Union standards and developing the market economy. The list of authorized private surveyors you could get services from is put up on the bulletin board in the nearest Cadastre office.
6. Does SAGW control the work of the private surveying companies?
Answer: In order to become an authorized surveyor, one has to fulfill some conditions proscribed by law, and have passed the exam for private surveyors. Their work is constantly controlled by the State Authority for Geodetic Works by verifying the survey reports they submit, thus checking the validity of the data. If during the supervision, SAGW should find some irregularities, they send a proposal to the Chamber of authorized architects and authorized engineers for sequestration of the authority to perform geodetic work. An additional guarantee is the obligation for compulsory insurance for accountability for damage that the private surveyors could incur onto others.
7. Can the Cadastre protect me from affairs like Fikom?
Answer: Unfortunately, at the moment SAGW does not have the legal jurisdiction to control whether some subjects are not acting in accordance to the law and are building or selling buildings without having the adequate documentation that will allow for this. Other state institutions are competent for that. In order to ensure additional protection from fraud, SAGW in cooperation with the relevant ministries is planning to propose amendments and addenda to the laws regulating this field.
8. A friend of mine said that in order to get the work done faster I should offer bribe to the clerk. Where can I report corruption and will it affect me?
Answer: We in SAGW are completely aware that the public has the impression that if they wish to get their job done in the cadastre, it is necessary for them to offer bribe. In order to overcome this situation, for some time now we have a free phone line functioning 0800 80 800 where the citizens can report corruption and point out the clerk that asked this of them. The caller’s discretion is guaranteed. In this way we are encouraging the citizens to help us find all cases of corruption attempts. At the same time we are improving our performance (speed and efficiency) in our work, by streamlining and simplifying the procedures and promoting the customer orientation – factors that have motivated some of our users to think about bribe that would ‘speed up’ the work.
9.Where can I get the information for the required documents for some cadastral service?
Answer: In line with the reforms of SAGW (Cadastre) there have been several specific activities undertaken in order to increase the accessibility and flow of information concerning the required documents, the procedure and the duration for some service. From recent, one can get this information on the free phone line 0800 80 800, and there was a special investor line opened, and also, as you can see, our web page has been completely redesigned and it now offers all of the necessary information for our services, and through it you can ask questions for which you will get answers in less than 24 hours. There have been several additional efforts made in the offices (front desks) of the cadastre in order for the citizens to be better informed about the services that we offer and the documents needed for these services. It sometimes happens for the citizens not to know why they need these documents, and this is why we are having a media campaign for informing them about the rights and obligations of the citizens and how to exercise these rights.
10 Question: In my property certificate there is a mistake because there is a wrong name written as owner of a part of the property. I sent an appeal to SAGW, however it was denied. What can I do more to prove that the property is mine?
Answer: According to the law, one can appeal against a decision made by SAGW (Cadastre) for the registration of property before the Second Instance Commission for resolving administrative matters from the field of survey, cadastre and registration of real estate rights, in the Government of the Republic of Macedonia, which is the only second instance body that has the power to decide, its decisions are final and they are registered in the cadastral maps and database. Whoever believes that have the right to the real estate and not the person registered as the owner, they can prove their right in a court of law. At the request of the person, the Cadastre will register the court dispute in the property certificate.
11. Question: Does a physical person have the right to apply for denationalization?
Answer: The cadastre is not the institution where one submits their request for denationalization, although as an institution we are a part of the process of determining the actual real estate situation regarding the real estate that is the object of this operation. A first instance institution for the implementation of this process is the State Commission that works within the Ministry for Finance, and the applications are sent to this Commission. Further on, the Commission is the one that cooperates with different institutions ex officio, and the Cadastre is one of these institutions, from where they get data and actions in accordance with their legal jurisdiction.
12 Question: What year were the first aero photographs made of land and buildings in Macedonia and
how many times has aero photography been made on the land and the buildings in Macedonia and in which years?
Answer: The first photogrammetry, as a method for recording for cadastral needs has been used in the Republic of Macedonia in for the photography of the village areas of several cadastral municipalities in 1955 for the photography of the village area of the cadastral municipality in Struga. Since then on, almost every year there is a survey done using the aero photogrammetric method for a part of the territory of the Republic of Macedonia. The last aerophotogrammetric shoot for the needs of the cadastre was made in the municipalities: Gostivar, Vrapciste, Rostuse – Mavrovo on the area of approximately 80000 ha.
In 2006, for cadastral purposes also, there has been photography of only the part with buildings in 190 cadastral municipalities in the cities of Skopje, Kumanovo, Tetovo, Kicevo, Struga and Bitola. From this last aero photography we got orto photo maps in color. For some cities in the period between 1999 to 2004 (Skopje, Krusevo, Debar, Bogdanci etc.) there has been aero photography out of which color orto photo maps have been created.
For cadastral needs for some cadastral municipalities (for e.g. Gevgelija, Valandovo, Berovo, Stip, Veles and other mostly rural cadastral municipalities) there has been a renewal of the already existing cadastral survey (aero photography) once again by using aerophotogrammetry, i.e. there are two or more aero photography surveys made.
At the moment almost the entire territory of the Republic of Macedonia has been aero photographed, except for some areas like around Tetovo, Bitola, Stip, Radovis, Strumica, where there has not been a single aero photography made, i.e. the cadastral records have been made on the basis of classic survey (tachymetry) which has been made in the period from 1928 to 1957.
In 2004, for the needs for preparation of a digital topographic map of the Republic of Macedonia, as a donation from the Japanese Government there has been an aerophotogrammetric photography taken for the whole territory of the Republic of Macedonia, in a scale of 1:40000, out of which shooting between the other products there were orto photo maps prepared, in black and white, in a scale of 1:25000.
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