The beautiful world of architecture is a historical imprint of human culture. As such it may be declared that real estate must be protected, especially if it is of monumental or otherwise historical value.
Therefore, before commencing a real estate transaction, a prudent legal advisor will carefully evaluate the legal status of the target property.
Beyond the fact that the basis of any transaction should be the legal title of the transactional target being free of any claim, litigation or encumbrance of any kind, an important factor to be considered are the preemptive rights which might sound pretty straight forward, but may cause certain challenges to find in cases where these are not directly registered in the Land Registry. Based on Hungarian real estate law, including but not limited to Act LXXVII of year 2011 on the world heritage as well as Act LXIV of year 2001 on the protection of cultural heritage, these statutes stipulate which territories of Hungary are to be considered as part of the world heritage or are worthy of monumental and / or historical value.
Generally speaking, in cases of condominiums, preemptive rights are found either in the Land Registry itself or in the deed of foundation of the real estate and usually the co-owners of the property are the ones entitled to such preemptive rights.
In case of buildings situated on world heritage or monumental / historical value declared territories the beneficiaries of the preemptive rights are the Hungarian State and / or the municipalities. The applicable specific legal provisions as in which organization we need to turn to in order to request a declaration on the intention (or lack thereof) to practice such preemptive right, then may be found in other laws such as governmental or ministry regulations.
There may be cases where the aforementioned written law may still raise some sort of uncertainty as to whether preemptive rights apply to a certain real estate or not, and thereby based on the following Hungarian governmental website (https://oroksegvedelem.e-epites.hu), we may find clarity and request for the beneficiaries of the preemptive rights to either react or acknowledge the transaction by means of implicit compliance within 30 (thirty) days calculated from the delivery of such request, unless otherwise stipulated by law.
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