The meeting with the representatives from the Sectors for urbanism from Kumanovo, Suto Orizari, Kocani, Stip, Tetovo and Prilep was realized in the frames of the project “Legalization of the housing for Roma”

The National Roma Centrum hosted a round table about the implementation of the Law about the treatment of the illegal buildings. The round table was opened by Katerina Sojic, a representative from the National Roma Centrum, with a brief introduction of the project “Legalization of housing for Roma,” which is being implemented by NRC in partnership with Habitat Macedonia and with a financial support from FOOM – Macedonia, which aims to help Roma families in six municipalities to legalize the illegal buildings and thereby exercise their right of housing.

She opened the debate by informing the present that invites were sent to representatives from the Ministry of Transport and Communications, the Cadastre Agency for Real Estate and the managers of the regional offices in the cities where the project is being implemented, but that they are not able to attend due to previously planned obligations.

The recommendations and conclusions of the meeting will be submitted to the Cadastre Agency for Real Estate and the Ministry of Transport and Communications.

The roundtable was attended by representatives from the municipalities where the project is implemented.

The moderator of the Round Table was Aleksandar Lazarov, geodetic engineer from Geokarta – Kocani.

The first topic of the meeting was – Approach in cases of determining the legal status of a spurious facility built on a land with unregistered rights. The discussion was about the way in which to observe whether an affected property has unregistered rights in the property certificate. The Sector for urbanism from Kumanovo pointed out that they have a problem with the property certificates with the diverse markings, and also with the fact that the properties are not exposed. They suggested that the markings should be unified in order to avoid confusion.

The participants discussed the ways of communication with the clients and with the Cadastres. They confirmed that the majority of municipalities make the reports by official duty when it comes to the legalization procedure, i.e. the municipality submits a request to the Cadastre, they act according to the request, the property gets displayed and the rights are recorded by official duty Then they inform the municipality which continues with the proceedings.

The representative from the Sector for legalization from Stip, Lazar Hadzi Nikolov, exchanged his positive experience from Stip, who have had good collaboration with the regional office of the Cadastre Agency for real estate. The municipality addresses the Cadastre with an application, without an administrative fee because they are freed of charge. They have 500 requests, the procedure goes relatively fast, the report goes smoothly and they record the unregistered right. Afterwards, the municipality informs the parties that the subject is registered in the Cadastre. The subjects are usually returned with the recorded rights of the Republic of Macedonia, and in some cases the user rights are being confirmed. If a user exists, then the Cadastre records him as well.

Many of the clients from Suto Orizari have census forms, and they pay for the elaborates by themselves and they take the property certificates in the municipality.

The discussion continued in the direction of the problem about the change of the applicant and codes of elaborates. The Cadastre has its codes, but the urban planners have other codes when they issue consent. The participants believe that the differences should be overcome and the terms aligned.

The moderator informed that a new guideline is being prepared and that it was prepared by a  representative from the Ministry of Transport and Communications, the Cadastre Agency and the Ministry of Agriculture. They have coordinated their differences and should settle some issues, but it remains to be seen about the implemented of the sub-codes in practise.

The participants said that they would appreciate if the Cadastre organizes a debate and offers some explanation in order to exclude some problems.

The next item on the agenda – Approach in the case of determining the legal status of illegal buildings built on a land whose purpose according to the applicable urban planning documentation is provided for a road, a green zone or is outside of the planning range. The moderator explained that the Law has defined some legal frames. In Kocani they are sent to the Council of the municipality, which decides to fit the illegal buildings in the urban documentation. According to the practice of the municipality of Kocani, out of 150 requests to the Council, only 10 were with a negative answer. The municipality functions with a Coordinator and a Commission who review the applications and then submit them to the Council.

The representative from Suto Orizari said that the municipality has a large percentage of illegal buildings, which will enter the plans for urban development as they are built, but it does not change anything in terms of standardization of the urban planning. The participants pointed out that the purpose of the Law is for the people to receive documentation, and not to fit it into a plan.

The Manager of the Sector for Urbanism from the Municipality of Prilep, Ilija Karevski, noted that they have the same problems, that they tend to make streets, legalize and give the opportunity to change the urban planning documentation through the Council. He pointed out that it is better for some buildings which stand in the way of the planned infrastructure to be refused, because if they get legalized then they will have problems afterwards. The Law cannot legalize everything. The people should know some of them won’t be able to legalize their objects.

The session on determining the legal status of a spurious facility built on land where the applicant is registered as the owner or the user, had a discussion about the current practice which is consisted of a statement with which the land can be used for over 20 years, which may further cause problems because of the unfinished privatization of the yards and a lot of these cases will end up with a court resolution.

In relation to this topic, the municipalities presented different experiences, most of them said they had cases with statements, but there are cases where proceedings stop due to differences in the families of the applicants and they are sent in a court where they will receive a closure.

The representative from the municipality of Stip raised the question about the experiences of the other municipalities with the applicants for legalization who have died in the meantime. He expressed his dissatisfaction with the practice of the notaries which in the procedure for legacy transfer the right recorded in the Evidence List, which is the illegal building which doesn’t exist in the legal trade, instead of passing the right for the implementation of the legalization procedure.

The illegal buildings are prohibited to have a turnover, concluded the participants, it is a mistake of the notaries if they record it, and this should be reported to ZELS and to the Notary Chamber in order for them to abolish this practice, which is not practical for the clients because they are exposed to additional cost and the procedure becomes complicated.

The Manager of the Sector for urbanism from Prilep appealed to the organizers of the round table, for the possibility to intervene with the Ministry of Transport and Communications and to require a prolongation of the possibility to apply requests for legalization, because a there is are a lot of people who haven’t applied. The initiative was supported by the other participants on the meeting.

The representative from Tetovo said that it will be a good thing to find a solution for the illegal change of the applicants, because there is a real need.

The attendees discussed about the requests for a change of applicants of the cadastral parcels, which is not defined by the Law, no matter which the cadastral municipality is. They have had the practice to legalize multiple objects with one application.

The representative from Prilep expressed his opinion that it will be a positive thing if the legalization refers to objects that are located in the same cadastral parcel, when it comes to a change of the applicant.

Daniel Petrovski, a facilitator involved in the project, initiated a discussion about a particular case in Suto Orizari, which refers to five brothers with an object on Macedonian land. All of them are registered as users of the land, and they have submitted three requests about the object, because two of the brothers live someplace else. Could the three of them legalize the object if they have consent from the others? The audience’s response was that they should exchange approvals if everyone agrees, or otherwise the procedure will have to go to court.

On this topic, the President of the Council of the Municipality of Suto Orizari explained that the municipality has a problem with the liberating of all welfare recipients, given the fact that 80% of the residents are socially disadvantaged. If they get liberated, then the budget will not be able to provide for the paving and the sewers. He proposed for a project which will provide financial compensation for the social cases and the legalization fee to be 1 euro per square meter, although according to the Law, the social cases are free of charge. This will help the municipalities to be able to invest more in the infrastructure.

Afterwards we discussed the two issues: the barracks which are in Suto Orizari and in a part of Sredorek, which, according to the General Urban Plan of Kumanovo, are planned to become a green area. It was explained that the barracks were donated by the U.S. government after 1963 as barracks, but it was determined on the site that they are no longer barracks, but a solid construction. A public company worked with them and the people used to pay rent, but they don’t anymore.

The representative from Suto Orizari pointed that most of the residents which live in barracks did not apply for legalization.

Regarding the issue with the green zone in Sredorek, the people who have filed elaborates need to go to the Council, said the representative from the municipality of Kumanovo Municipality.

The round table resulted with the following conclusions:

1. There are unbalanced practices in all of the municipalities, because somewhere there is an official statement, and sometimes there is not, but the law is one and should be applied everywhere, and uniformed practices are required in the implementation of the Law  which deals with illegally built objects.

2. In terms of determining the legal status of illegal buildings where a road or a green zone have been planned, it was determined that everyone should go to the Council with a draft decision, which will decide whether it will fit in the future planning documentations or not. In the case of census forms with unregistered rights, the cost goes at the expense of the client, and in this case there is no official exposition.

3. The participants concluded that ambiguities appear in the property and legal relation, specifically with the statement that the parties should be clear that they will not straighten their property and legal relations and that they will obtain an approval for a legalizing of the object and not of the land.

4. There isn’t an established practice in terms of changing the applicant when it comes to different cadastral municipalities and cadastral parcels. More precise instructions are necessary about this issue.

5. The demographic structure of the municipalities with a higher number of social help recipients should be taken in consideration, and to be careful not to stretch the budget of the municipality. Everyone in the state should be freed from subvention.

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