Even after almost eight years since the adoption of the Law on Spatial Planning and Construction of Buildings, most local governments have still not established a list of illegal buildings for which a request for legalization has not been submitted. This work has only been partially completed in the Royal Capital of Cetinje and Danilovgrad.
"The competent municipal authorities, in accordance with the applicable legal solution, were obliged to systematize and establish a list of illegal buildings for which a request for legalization was not submitted, or which did not meet the conditions for legalization in accordance with this law, but only a small number of them did so," said Nikola Ražnatović, Acting General Director of the Directorate for Legalization of Illegal Buildings.
For example, in the Capital City, the Real Estate Administration keeps records of constructed and registered buildings, while in Kolašin, they justify this by citing a lack of capacity, or the engagement of employees in other jobs that accompany the period of the "investment boom". In Mojkovac, there are no geodetic professionals, and Bijelo Polje also has "no personnel capabilities, and is not technically equipped, so it was not able to establish a list of illegal buildings"...
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Around 700 buildings in the Royal Capital without legalization requirements
Based on the list of illegal structures and submitted applications for legalization, the number of illegal structures for which no application for legalization has been submitted in the Royal Capital is estimated at approximately 700.
In Cetinje, a list of illegal buildings has been established based on the Law on Spatial Planning and Construction of Buildings, data from eCadastre - the Cadastre and State Property Administration of Montenegro, Geoportal - the Cadastre and State Property Administration of Montenegro, the Secretariat's records of submitted requests for legalization and valid planning documents.
The difficulties in systematizing and determining the list of illegal buildings for which a request for legalization was not submitted, or which did not meet the legalization requirements, which resulted in the list not being fully completed and each building being recorded for possible additions or upgrades, as stated in the Public Relations Office of the Royal Capital of Cetinje, was the inability to access the "Ortho-photo" image, which includes vertical and oblique ortho-photo images, from which it was only possible to check whether the situation on the ground corresponds to the data from the Real Estate List.
971 illegally built structures in Danilovgrad
The list includes 2.016 illegal buildings classified according to planning documents. In the "Historical Core" there are 95 illegal buildings, followed by Gruda - Donje Polje (399), Donji Kraj (187), Aerodrom (476), Bogdanov kraj (298), Crna Greda (36), Bajice (111), Humci (295), Industrial Zone (51), Pozduje (27), Gornji Obod (8), and the Royal Capital of Cetinje has 34 illegal buildings.
"Data for rural areas was difficult to process without access to the "Ortho Photo" image and due to the large territory of the Royal Capital of Cetinje. According to data held by the Secretariat, there were 102 requests for legalization from rural areas," they state.
14.051 requests for legalization in the Capital
The Royal Capital is preparing a Decision on the annual fee for the use of space for illegal structures, which should be paid by the owners of structures for which a request for legalization has not been submitted and for which a decision rejecting the request for legalization has been issued in the legalization process. With its adoption, the following steps will be taken.
Since the beginning of the application of the Law on Spatial Planning and Construction of Buildings, a total of 1.307 requests for legalization have been submitted. 120 decisions on legalization have been issued, 903 decisions on rejection of requests and 118 decisions on termination of the procedure. The list of illegal buildings will be updated in accordance with the ortho-photograph, which changes daily by acting on requests and issuing new decisions.
The list in Danilovgrad needs to be updated.
The Municipality of Danilovgrad, or rather the Secretariat for Urban Planning and Environmental Protection, as stated by the Public Relations and Protocol Service of this city, compiled a list of illegally constructed buildings in January 2024. The list contains a list of owners of illegally constructed buildings who have registered in the cadastral register and submitted a request for legalization, as well as owners of illegally constructed buildings who are registered in the cadastral register but have not submitted a request for legalization at the time of compiling the list.
The list of illegal buildings, compiled by cadastral municipalities and based on the data available at that time, contains a total of 971 illegally built buildings, of which 525 buildings were subject to a request for legalization, while 446 buildings were not subject to a request, as we have already stated, at the time the list was compiled.
The above list needs to be updated, given that the number of illegally constructed buildings in the field is even higher. Also, the above activities require manpower, organization and time to be adequately implemented, which will certainly be one of the priorities.
So far, 1394 requests for legalization have been received, of which a certain number were rejected, a certain number were terminated, while a total of 274 legalization decisions were issued.
The capital has not established a list of illegal buildings, and the Real Estate Administration keeps records of constructed and registered buildings. We would like to remind you that a certain number of buildings are probably not even registered in the cadastral records. The Cadastral Administration has submitted some of the data to this Secretariat, but in a format that is not applicable for further processing.
The Podgorica budget for 2025, for the needs of the Secretariat for Spatial Planning and Sustainable Development, has allocated funds for the creation of a list of illegal structures, but the creation of the list largely depends on data from the Real Estate Administration.
By April 16, 2025, 14.051 requests had been submitted in the Capital City, and 674 facilities had been legalized.
"The Municipality of Bijelo Polje has not established a list of illegal structures and does not have precise data on the number of illegal structures for which a request for legalization has not been submitted," said Haris Šahman, Secretary of the Secretariat for Planning and Spatial Development of the Municipality of Bijelo Polje.
He points out that the Municipality of Bijelo Polje lacks the human resources and is not technically equipped, so it was unable to establish a list of illegal buildings, so it is currently unable to work on establishing a list of illegal buildings, even though it does not have precise records of the number of illegal buildings.
"Since the beginning of the implementation of the Law on Spatial Planning and Construction of Facilities from 2017, the number of requests submitted in our municipality has been 1.855, and 350 positive decisions have been made on the legalization of illegally constructed facilities," Šahman points out.
Kolašin without reliable records
The municipality of Kolašin has not yet established a list of illegal buildings on its territory. Therefore, there is no reliable record of the number of illegal buildings.
"Since the beginning of the application of the Law in 2017, a total of 1.116 requests for the legalization of illegal structures have been submitted. Of that number, 26 decisions on legalization have been issued, 222 decisions on the suspension of procedures (in cases where the structures are not considered illegal, due to the withdrawal of the party from the request, the death of the party or when a decision has already been made in another administrative procedure), and 148 procedures have been terminated so far because the illegal structures do not fit into the plan or property-legal relations on the land have not been resolved. In 720 procedures, supplementary submissions have been requested because all the necessary documentation provided for in Article 156 of the Law has not been submitted," says Mirela Drašković, Acting Secretary of the Secretariat for Spatial Planning, Communal Affairs and Traffic of the Municipality of Kolašin.
The Municipality of Mojkovac has not drawn up a final list of illegal buildings, because it believes that this task should be under the jurisdiction of the Real Estate Administration, which registers illegal buildings, keeps records of illegal buildings, and employs appropriately qualified personnel authorized for this task.
The Municipality of Mojkovac, according to the Secretariat for Urban Planning, Housing and Communal Affairs and Transport, has repeatedly submitted objections, proposals and suggestions on this topic to the Union of Municipalities of Montenegro and the Ministry of Spatial Planning and Urban Planning of Montenegro in order to jointly find a way to resolve this problem in a timely manner.
The process of adopting a new Law on Legalization is underway, and we believe that this Law should specify provisions related to illegal facilities, as well as the jurisdiction for determining the list of illegal facilities, the Secretariat points out.
The Municipality of Mojkovac does not have any employees in the geodetic profession, nor does it have a sufficient number of employees in the construction and architectural professions who would professionally and expertly solve the problem of compiling a list of illegal buildings. When determining the list of illegal buildings, account must be taken of the precise gross construction area of the building, the number of floors of the building and measures important for calculating the amount of compensation, for which persons who do not perform work in the above-mentioned professions cannot determine arbitrarily, visually and obtain accurate and precise data.
There is a difference, they emphasize in the Secretariat for Urban Planning, Housing and Communal Affairs and Traffic of the Municipality of Mojkovac, between temporary and auxiliary facilities that cannot be arbitrarily determined, and as prescribed by the Law, temporary facilities are not subject to the legalization process. The Municipality of Mojkovac is for any form of cooperation, but without the jurisdiction of the Real Estate Administration and finding a common solution at the state level, it is not able to undertake anything. We believe that this work should be under the jurisdiction of the Real Estate Administration, because the Administration registers and has records of illegal facilities.
19.605 illegal housing units in the Municipality of Bar
Since the entry into force of the Law on Spatial Planning and Construction of Facilities, 385 requests for legalization have been submitted and all requests have been processed or are in the process of processing the case, of which 91 facilities have been legalized, Decisions on refusal were issued for 43 facilities because a building permit was not required at the time of construction, Decisions on suspension of the procedure until the resolution of property relations and Decisions on suspension of the procedure until the adoption of the general regulation plan were issued for 104 facilities. The procedures that were suspended until the resolution of property relations relate to the resolution of property issues where the state of Montenegro is the owner of the land and no such procedure has been resolved, while the procedures that were suspended until the adoption of the general regulation plan have also not been resolved, because that plan has not yet been adopted at the state level.
The Municipality of Rožaje is currently preparing a list of illegally constructed buildings. The reason why they have not completed the list of illegally constructed buildings, as they say in the Municipality, is that the Real Estate Administration has not completed the procedure for listing a large part of the territory of the Municipality of Rožaje where the census cadastre is in force, and they have not been able to pull data from the Geo Portal of Montenegro, and the competent secretariat does not have a sufficient number of officials who could go out into the field and list illegally constructed buildings.
"There is no precise record of illegally constructed buildings on the territory of our Municipality, but in the coming period we will work on systematizing and establishing a list of illegally constructed buildings," the Municipality says.
Since the beginning of the implementation of the Law on Spatial Planning and Construction of Facilities in 2017, 119 illegally constructed facilities have been legalized in the Municipality of Rožaje, and a total of 1339 requests for legalization have been submitted.
Of the total number of requests submitted, 357 were rejected, 85 were suspended, and 485 were terminated. The remaining requests are in the processing process.
A series of ambiguities and frequent changes to the law
The procedure for legalizing illegally constructed buildings in Montenegro, the Municipality of Bar points out, has been accompanied by a series of ambiguities and frequent amendments and supplements from the central government level, which has made it difficult for local governments to implement such a process in recent years. Here, they add, special consideration should be given to the limited capacities of the administrations themselves in this area and the significant role of the state cadastral authorities, without which local governments cannot implement procedures.
"In this sense, the Municipality of Bar received from the cadastre, at the end of 2023, a list of illegally constructed buildings on its territory. We requested such an updated list at the end of last year, but we still have not received it. The data from the aforementioned document indicate 19.605 illegal units, but it should be noted that these are not always complete buildings, but also floors, storeys, or parts of buildings," they point out in the Municipality of Bar.
Based on this data, the competent authorities in the Municipality of Bar are currently preparing a list of illegal buildings by cadastral municipality. For some cadastral municipalities, such a list has already been completed, while others are in the process. Since there is no central methodology, software or similar solution that would facilitate the process, officials are forced to "manually" process a huge number of cases, which slows down the procedures.
The competent authority of the Municipality of Bar has 11.382 requests for the legalization of illegally constructed buildings on record, which amounts to almost 60% of the total number of illegal buildings on our territory according to cadastral data. We note that a number of citizens abandoned the procedure after the Government of Montenegro adopted the Decision on Urban Sanitation in 2021, considering the established legalization prices too high. At this point, the procedure has been positively completed and a decision on legalization has been issued for nine buildings in Bar.
Criminal charges for illegal construction
Article 326a of the Criminal Code of Montenegro stipulates the criminal offense of constructing a structure without registration and documentation.
In the Basic State Prosecutor's Office in Berane, in the period from January 1, 2010 to December 31, 2024, a total of 28 criminal reports were filed on this basis.
In the same period, 326 criminal charges were filed with the Basic State Prosecutor's Office in Plav against 59 persons based on the criminal offense under Article 76a of the Criminal Code. The charges against 34 persons were dismissed, four persons were transferred to another competent prosecutor's office, three persons are still pending, and 35 persons were charged, five of whom were indicted and 30 were indicted. Three persons were sentenced to prison, one person was fined, 29 persons were given suspended sentences, one person was dismissed and one person was acquitted.
Due to this criminal offense, 2018 criminal reports were filed in the Podgorica Public Prosecutor's Office between 2024 and the end of 123, and last year alone 38 people were reported, which is a two and a half times increase compared to 2023. State prosecutors dismissed criminal reports against 7 people, indictments were filed against eight people, and the report against one person was resolved in a different way.
The Basic State Prosecutor's Office in Rožaje had no filed and processed reports for the criminal offense of building a structure without a report and documentation during this period.
In this period, the Basic State Prosecutor's Office in Bar had 519 criminal reports pending for this criminal offense, and in the Nikšić Public Prosecutor's Office 59 reports.
Fine from 500 to 4.000 euros
A fine of between 500 and 4.000 euros, as stated in Article 210 of the Law on Spatial Planning and Construction of Facilities, shall be imposed on a responsible person in a local government body if, within 60 days from the expiry of the deadline, he or she fails to systematize and establish a list of illegal facilities for which a request for legalization has not been submitted, or which have not met the requirements for legalization in accordance with this Law.
The same penalty is provided for if, within 15 days from the date of determination, the list of illegal structures is not submitted to the urban planning and construction inspector, for the purpose of issuing a decision on the removal of the structures, and to the local government body competent for issuing a decision on providing alternative accommodation for illegal primary housing structures.
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