Purpose of this page
In this section we present also more detailed description of the
land record systems in Slovakia in last 100 years, examples of
real historical and present documents and hints how Slovak
expatriates can claim their land possessions in Slovakia.
Table of contents
Land register before circa 1960
In Hungary and later in Czechoslovakia the small land owners
rarely wrote a Will. According the Hungarian law the property
was split into equal shares amongst the children (In Austria
including the Czech lands usually the oldest son inherited the
land, therefore the land ownership there is not so diluted as in
Slovakia). After two generations it becomes impossible to split
the parcels in kind (i.e. to create more but smaller parcels),
therefore the parcel was fixed, but the number of owners was
increased. The property share was distributed usually uniformly
between the heirs. Therefore in Slovakia most of the land is in
a
JOINT OWNERSHIP.
In Hungary there was a land record system called "telekkönyv"
(pozemková kniha). It was actually a collection of files, each
file had name "telekkönyvi betét (TB)". The Slovak expression is
"pozemkovo kniná vloka" (PKV). Let us use the Slovak acronym
PKV in what follows.
Each PKV file
consisted of three parts:
- Part A - description of the property and inventory of the
parcels;
- Part B - owners and changes of ownership in chronological
order;
- Part C - liabilities (if any);
This system was quite different from the present land record
system in the USA, therefore we will explain it in detail.
Part A - description of the property and inventory of the
parcels
The original Hungarian
name was A) Birtoklap (in Slovak A) Majetková
podstata)
If the numbering of the parcels was consecutive, they
were probably adjacent, if the there was a gap in
numbering, the parcels were probably not adjacent. An
example of a PKV #40 from the village Mliečno (now part
of amorín) is
presented on the right. There were two parcels # 734/2
and 735/2. Click on it to
enlarge it.
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|
Part B - owners and changes of ownership in chronological
order
The original Hungarian
name was "B) Tulajdoni lap" (in Slovak B) Vlastníctvo).
We present again an example. The whole first page is
available after clicking on
the truncated page on the right. There are listed
the owners and the ownership changes in the
chronological order.
The first and second
records state, that in 1895 Gyorgy Csiba and his wife
Veron Tóth purchased both a fraction of the property
described in the part A). They acquired an arithmetic
fraction of 1/6 "egy hatod részben".
The third record
states, that Menyhert Zolderdo purchased the fraction
4/6 (négy hatod részben) in 1897.
The two parcels were thus between 1897-1923 in joint
property of three individuals with following shares:
record # |
Co-owner
|
Share (in arithmetic fraction)
|
1
|
Gyorgy Csiba |
1/6
|
2
|
Veron Tóth
|
1/6
|
3
|
Menyhért Zolderdo
|
4/6
|
|
TOTAL
|
6/6 = 1/1 = 100%
|
The couple Gyorgy Csiba and Veron Csiba nee Toth had 8
children, among them one daughter Maria Saghy nee Csiba
who died in 1910 leaving 5 children from her first
marriage and one child from the second. In 1923 Veron
Toth died, her heirs were the 7 living children and 6
grandchildren (children of late Maria). The 1/6 share of
the deceased was divided uniformly to 8 parts, it
corresponded to fraction 1/48, further the fraction to
be assigned to the late Maria was divided to 6 parts
uniformly to all her six children, this corresponds to
an fraction of 1/288. The ownership to the two parcels
was finally as follows:
record # |
Co-owner
|
Share (in arithmetic fraction)
|
1
|
Gyorgy Csiba |
1/6 = 48/288
|
2
|
Veron
Tóth
|
1/6
|
3
|
Menyhért Zolderdo
|
4/6 = 192/288
|
4 replacing
record 2
above
|
a) Csiba Teréz
b) Csiba Mihály
c) Csiba Juliana
d) Csiba Ilka
e) Csiba Gyorgy
f) Csiba Erzsebet
g) Csiba Judit
h) Sághy Roza
i) Sághy Julia
j) Sághy Mária
k) Sághy Erzsébet
l) Sághy Menyhért
m) Sill Gyula
|
1/48 = 6/288
1/48 = 6/288
1/48 = 6/288
1/48 = 6/288
1/48 = 6/288
1/48 = 6/288
1/48 = 6/288
1/288
1/288
1/288
1/288
1/288
1/288
|
|
TOTAL
|
1/6+4/6+7*1/48+6*1/288 = 288/288 = 100%
|
You see, the notary public were skilled mathematicians.
The total arithmetic sum of all shares is always 1.00.
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This process was continued resulting in the present diluted
joint property. According
an
article in the
Slovak
Spectator, the average land in rural areas covers 0.45
hectares and belongs to 12 to 15 co-owners
Part C - liabilities (if any)
In this part the liabilities and debts were recorded.
This system established end of 19th century was in operation
until circa 1960, when a new modern system was introduced. The
system survived changes of state borders, changes of political
regimes and nationalization.
Agricultural cooperatives
The majority of the land owned by Hungarian aristocracy was
nationalized before W.W.II. The Czechoslovak communist regime
did not nationalize the land of small farmers, therefore only
the property of "big landowners" was nationalized by the
communists. The Czechoslovak communist adopted another
agricultural policy as in Soviet Union. The small farmers were
invited to join the cooperatives and many of them joined
voluntarily, others were forced to join. This was called
"kolektivizacia" The "agricultural cooperatives" were indeed
"cooperatives" which cultivated the plots of their members. It
is not known in the West, that the land alone was not
nationalized! This means, that even during communist regime the
land was in private ownership "de jure", but the owners had no
possibility to withdraw their plots and to cultivate them alone.
The ownership of the houses and adjacent gardens and even small
acreage (called as "zahumienky") was not tackled by the
communist regime at all.
It must be noted, that there were villages, where despite the
massive state campaign the farmers resisted and did not
establish a cooperative - such farmers remained private farmers
also during communist regime.
Land register after circa 1960
In about 1960 a new land register system was created. The new
system conserved the old registers and parcels based on PKVs and
in addition a new system based recording not only the ownership,
but also the "users". This was very important for the
cooperatives, where the land was still in ownership of the
individuals (cooperative founders), but cultivated (utilized) by
a legal entity - cooperative. Later the younger generation has
forgotten about the possessions of their ancestors and the state
did not encourage the heirs to claim their estate which was
utilized by cooperatives. This schizophrenic system caused, that
many former owners and their descendants are still thinking,
that their land was nationalized in early 1950, but it is not
true!
Recovery of the land register
After the revolution in 1989 the recovery of the land register
got one of the priorities of the government. In 1995 a law was
passed with intention to complete the renewed register of land
(ROEP, register obnovenej evidencie pody) in 2005. During the
period 1995-2005 the screening of the land ownership had to be
completed. In each town there are local land register recovery
committees searching for the owners. There are many land
records, which were not updated in last 100 years, but the most
owners were "lost" in the period 1939-1989.
The two main reasons, why the owners get unknown are:
- In the first half of the 20th century there was a massive
emigration from Slovakia. Most of the emigrants left small
shares of joint land ownership in Slovakia. When this first
generation of the emigrants died, the heirs abroad did not
record the death of the deceased to the authorities in
Slovakia. Thus the owners who died abroad many years
before are still recorded as the owners. During W.W.II and
during the communist regime it was also practically
impossible to settle an estate in Slovakia for the
expatriate heirs.
- After circa 1950 most agricultural land and forests were
cultivated by the cooperatives and state enterprises. Many
people believed that their property was nationalized, even
it was not (see above). In the case of an owner who died,
the heirs in Slovakia simply did not claim the estate, which
was in their eyes already "nationalized".
As a result, in 1995 the total net area of the unclaimed land in
Slovakia was about 6.000 square kilometres,
this represents 12% of the Slovak
territory!!!! This huge land and forest area of
unfound owners is administered by
Slovak Land Fund and
Slovak Forest Administration.
Practically all Slovak political parties agree, that the land
ownership must be recovered and the shares of the virtual
(unfound) owners must be settled not later than 2005. There was
a heavy debate, what should happen with the land of owners who
will remain unknown also after that deadline. There were two
options:
- The unclaimed land is to be nationalized and then utilized
by the state;
- The unclaimed land will be first nationalized and then
transferred to ownership of municipalities.
Finally the second option was adopted and thus after the 31
August 2005 the unclaimed land had to be nationalized and after
31 August 2006 the unclaimed land had to be by law transferred
to the ownership of municipalities.
Note:
see the decision of the General Prosecutor, the law is
suspended now until the decision of the Constitutional Court.
This recovery process is supervised and managed by the
Slovak Office
for Cartography and Land Registry (Úrad geodézia a katastra
SR).
There is a possibility to download the
Property
sheets (List vlastníctva, LV) (.pdf file) and to
print the cadastre maps using the online
Katastrálny portál.
The modern land records have the same structure, as the records
before 1948. Of course they are digitized. The legal hard copy
document attesting ownership is called
Vypis z listu vlastnictva (Extract
from the property sheet), in bureaucratic jargon called
simply
List vlastnictva,
the acronym is
LV. The
structure is the same as in the
Pozemkovo kniná
vloka( PKV) described above.
- Part A - description of the property and inventory of the
parcels;
- Part B - present owners only, there is no history of the ownership recorded any
more;
- Part C - liabilities (if any);
Examples of property sheets
Here is an example of a "List vlastníctva", where VÁCZY Ján.
This is a
LV c. 760 listing
only one parcel, total two pages
Next example is
LV c. 1883
which lists three parcels.
How to submit a land claim in Slovakia
The heirs of the land left by emigrants from Slovakia, which is
now recorded as "unclaimed" are their grandchildren or great
grandchildren. It is enough, that one of the eligible heirs
submit a claim - this will put the bureaucratic machinery in
movement. This one petitioner has not only to prove, that he is
the heir, but he has also to show, who are the other heirs. It
means, that any of the heirs can do it and all other heirs will
be involved automatically. The court will inform all the heirs,
that an estate has been found, where they are eligible heir.
They can either accept the inheritance, or resign by written
declaration. In case they resign, the court will ask their
children, if they want to be heirs, thus the children have
resign also. If all oversee cousins would resign, then the
property will go only to the Slovak heirs. Of course, the Slovak
cousin can submit a claim without informing the court about
American cousins and signing a testimony, that the Slovak cousin
is the only one heir. This is "de jure" a fraud, but the courts
in Slovakia have no means to do investigations for oversee
heirs.
It would be extremely frustrating to claim land in which the
expatriate heirs may have only a small fraction of ownership.
The monetary value of the unclaimed land
is usually small.
CentroConsult offers professional assistance in:
- Mining of the data included in the Slovak land records for
genealogy purposes;
- Identification of the unclaimed land left in Slovakia by
ancestors;
- Assessment, if it is worthwhile to submit a claim
(according the Slovak law, also foreigner are eligible, the
question is, if the value of the estate is not less than the
fees);
- Filing land claims in Slovakia.
Press monitor - articles published in
the Slovak Spectator
How foreigners can
find their way to Slovak land (9 February 2004)
In Slovakia some
records of property ownership are a century out of date (9
February 2004)
Online real estate
register launched (23 February 2004)
Fidesz claim
rejected (26 July 2004)
Real
estate registry website off to rocky start (10 September 2007)
Credit to Bill Tarkulich for proofreading corrections and
comments
Last update: 8 January 2008