As of that date, after a sales contract is signed and certified by a public notary, it is possible for an attorney or public notary to have that registered online in the land titles registry at the relevant municipal court. Once registration is completed, citizens can pick up a hard copy of the title from the public notary or attorney.
As of 15 March, public notaries registered with the Croatian Notaries Chamber will be authorised to apply for land titles to be registered online.
The advantage of the new system lies in the fact that the public notary can immediately inform the client if everything above board with the real estate in question, which will reduce the possibility of misuse or fraud, Plenkovic said.
"We will avoid situations in which people attempt to sell the same property to two potential buyers due to the slowness of registering land titles," he added.
Citizens will no longer have to physically go to the land titles office and for a fee of HRK 200 will be able to complete that task which until now required much more time and effort.
The new system will provide a much higher level of safety and there will be no need to fear that a property might be sold during the process of its registration, Minister Sprlje said.
Even though it has been possible to obtain Land Titles online, attorneys, public notaries and citizens are not using the system very much and Minister Sprlje called on everyone to change their habits.
Of the 1.04 million excerpts requested last year, only 30,000 were requested online, he said.
Text: Hina