Registration of certificate of inheritance

1. To what extent could the Certificate be registered in your Land Registry? Is this Certificate enough for the registration of ownership (or other rights in rem) in the name of the heirs (or legatees)? Otherwise, which other additional documents or complementary requirements would be needed?

The certificate of inheritance is issued by the probate court or a public notary as the court’s commissioner. It is implemented ex officio in the land register, and for ownership to be registered it is enough to submit the certificate of inheritance to the competent land registry court. This means that it is not necessary for the heirs or legatees to implement the certificate of inheritance. If the probate court fails to submit the certificate of inheritance, the heirs may request ownership registration themselves.

2. In particular: for the purposes of registration, if the interested parties have complied with a Certificate of Inheritance adequately, will sharing out or distribution of estate deeds be also necessary?

The probate proceeding is normally implemented by a public notary as the court’s commissioner, and only exceptionally by the probate court. The notary submits the certificate of inheritance to all heirs and legatees, or other persons entitled to the deceased person’s property. The certificate of inheritance is implemented after becoming effective, and no other documents need to be submitted to the land registry court. The certificate itself defines how the heirs are to distribute the deceased person’s property.

3. In the event that the Certificate cannot be used for purposes of registration at all in your LR system, please let’s know the legal reasons.

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4. May the Certificate be rejected by your registration authorities in the event of inadequate completion, mistakes or inaccuracies?

The certificate of inheritance may be rejected for implementation if the material assumption is not met of the land registry predecessor being the same person as the legator, i.e. the deceased person.

5. For the certificate to be effective for the distribution of the estate and its registration, should this document be issued by national notaries or other practitioners or could it be issued by foreign notaries?

The Inheritance Act in effect defines the exclusive jurisdiction of Croatian courts and public notaries, which means that a certificate of inheritance issued by a foreign public notary or other competent body may not be implemented in the Croatian land register.