Buying and selling land

In particular, ownership and encumbrances on the title deed, easements, access from a public road, compliance with the development plan and building possibilities, any pre-emption rights and whether the property is agricultural land subject to transfer restrictions. We carry out these checks for you before signing.

After the sale agreement is signed, we apply to register ownership in the Land Register. The buyer becomes the owner only on registration, rather than on signing the agreement — so we link payment to registration through escrow. We monitor proceedings until registration is final.

Escrow protects both parties — the buyer does not lose their money without ownership being registered, and the seller knows the money is available and will be paid immediately after the transfer. We link release of the price to Land Register registration and, where appropriate, removal of existing encumbrances.

Examples include mortgages, easements (access, utilities), pre-emption rights, leases, enforcement liens and restrictions arising from development plans or protection zones. We check all of them and flag those that could affect your plans for the land.

Yes. Alongside land, we arrange transfers of commercial property and transactions within businesses and projects, coordinating them with financing, escrow and subsequent steps. We can connect the property transfer with corporate and property development work.

Under § 38(2) of the VAT Act, supplies of land are exempt from tax — except for building land, which is taxable. Where building land is supplied together with a building, it shares that building’s tax treatment. We first check whether the seller is acting as a taxable person, whether the seller is registered for VAT or becomes liable for registration as a result of the supply itself. VAT generally does not arise on an ordinary private sale outside an economic activity. We discuss the full regime, including the option to tax, in Is VAT payable on a property sale?.

Not necessarily. If the seller arranges removal of the building and demolition has already begun before the supply, this constitutes a single supply for VAT purposes whose economic objective is the supply of undeveloped land. Whether it constitutes building land under national law must, however, be assessed separately. The Court of Justice of the EU judgment in Case C-461/08 Don Bosco left that classification to the national court. Who commissions demolition and when it begins is therefore more than an organisational question.

For an ordinary purchase, tax liability arises only on 1 January of the following year and the return is due by 31 January. Different rules apply to acquisition at auction and inheritance, where liability arises during the year. Slovakia has no property transfer or acquisition tax — unlike arrangements some clients know from other countries.