Registration refused by the cadastre: an appeal, or a new agreement and a new application?

The decision refusing registration arrives by post or in the electronic mailbox, and the time limit for an appeal runs from its delivery. The buyer asks when they will get the property, the seller when they will get the money, and the bank waits. There are two routes: to appeal and persuade the superior authority that the cadastre decided incorrectly, or to remove the ground for refusal and begin fresh proceedings with a corrected agreement. Which is better depends almost entirely on why registration was refused.

Why the cadastre refuses registration

With an ordinary agreement, the cadastre examines its content broadly:

The district office examines the agreement as to whether it contains the essential elements of an agreement, whether the act was made in the prescribed form, whether the transferor is entitled to deal with the property, whether the expressions of will are sufficiently definite and comprehensible, whether freedom of contract or the right to deal with the property is not restricted, whether the agreement does not conflict with the law, whether it does not circumvent the law and whether it is not contrary to good morals.

— Section 31(1) of the Cadastral Act (unofficial English translation)

If those conditions are not met, it refuses the application (Section 31(3)). Where the agreement is in the form of a notarial deed or authorised by a lawyer, it reviews only compliance with the cadastral records and the procedural conditions (Section 31(2)). Refusal must be distinguished from discontinuation of the proceedings, which occurs for example where the fee has not been paid or defects in the application have not been remedied (Section 31b(1)(e) and (f)). The first step is therefore to read the reasoning and distinguish whether the cadastre is pointing to a defect that really is in the agreement, or has assessed the agreement differently from the way you would.

An appeal

The appeal is filed with the district office that decided, within 15 days of delivery of the decision. The district office may allow it itself; if it does not allow it in full, it submits it together with the file within 30 days at the latest to the Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre Authority of the Slovak Republic, which decides within six months of submission (Section 31(7) in conjunction with Section 6(2)). An administrative action may still be brought against the appeal decision within two months of its notification (Section 181(1) of the Administrative Court Procedure Code).

The advantage of an appeal is that the original proceedings continue. The cadastre removes the pending-change marker from the title sheet only upon a final decision refusing registration (Section 44(1)), and rights to the same property are entered in the order in which the documents were delivered (Section 41(2)). If the appeal succeeds, the decision concerns an agreement delivered earlier than documents filed later. The disadvantage is time: once the appeal has been submitted to the superior authority, deciding it may take months, and the transaction stands still meanwhile.

An appeal makes sense above all where, in your view, the cadastre assessed the agreement incorrectly, for example treated as indefinite an expression that is definite, or required a consent the law does not require, and where preserving priority matters because the seller’s creditor or another interested party may reach for the property.

A new agreement and a new application

If the defect lies in the agreement itself, an appeal against a correctly identified shortcoming will not help. The law permits an agreement to be corrected by an amendment after the application has been filed while the proceedings are under way (Section 42(4)); after a refusal, therefore, a new agreement is usually concluded in which the ground for refusal has been removed. Filing the same agreement again is pointless: where an application has already been refused in the matter on a ground under Section 31(1), the cadastre discontinues the proceedings (Section 31b(1)(c)).

The cadastre decides on a new application within the ordinary period of 30 days, or within 20 days where the agreement is authorised by a lawyer or in the form of a notarial deed (Section 32(1) and (2)). This route is often quicker, but it has two conditions. Both parties must sign the new agreement, which, in the absence of a contractual obligation, is a matter of their will. And the new application takes priority according to the day on which it was delivered, so if another document has reached the property meanwhile, that document will rank first. If the buyer is financing the purchase with a mortgage, it is also necessary to verify with the bank in advance whether it will accept the new agreement, because the loan and security documentation may refer to the original purchase agreement. How to deal with these risks in advance is discussed in the article when the cadastre suspends or refuses registration.

How to decide

• An appeal is worth considering if the agreement is in your view sound, the cadastre assessed it incorrectly and you need to preserve your priority.
• A new agreement should be prepared if the defect identified is a real one, both parties are ready to sign again and nothing material depends on priority.
• In both cases, inform the bank and the escrow agent immediately. The money should stay where it is until it is clear which route will be taken.

The choice is also influenced by who prepared the agreement and whether it is an agreement authorised by a lawyer, where the scope of the cadastre’s review is narrower. Common causes of problems with the identification of properties are described in the article a purchase agreement for a house and land.

We will assess the refusal decision without delay once it is delivered, so that the time limit does not run idle, and will pursue the chosen route until the registration decision as part of our suspended proceedings and refused registration service. We will prepare and file a new application with a corrected agreement as part of our cadastral registration application service.