Is an old house legal?

A house is in order on paper if there is a use act for it. The law lists them: an occupancy permit, a building permit or another act issued before 19 June 1991 with a confirmation from the building inspection, a legalisation decision (rješenje o izvedenom stanju) and a certificate that the building was built or recorded in the cadastre before 15 February 1968.

Before buying, ask the seller for these documents. The land register may also carry a note that the building or occupancy permit has not been submitted. That is a sign to look further.

A building built before 15 February 1968 is deemed to have been built under a final building permit. This is proven by an occupancy permit for a building built before that date, which the building authority issues on request.

The authority establishes when the building was built from the state aerial survey taken before 15 February 1968 or another official map of the State Geodetic Administration. Aerial images from 1968 are public on the Geoportal, so you can see for yourself whether the house stood then.

Open the Geoportal of the State Geodetic Administration. Type the cadastral municipality and the parcel number into the search box, for example Slavonski Brod 1234, and pick the parcel from the list. The map zooms in and shows plot boundaries and building outlines from the cadastre over today's image.

The example in the images is Tvrđava Brod, the fortress in Slavonski Brod, a public building. The Geoportal is in Croatian, the labels are given here in Croatian with a translation.

In the left menu open Osnovni slojevi (base layers), the diamond icon. Under Digitalne ortofoto karte (orthophoto maps) scroll down to 1968 and click it. The map switches to a black and white aerial image, while plot boundaries and today's building outlines stay on top.

Check whether a building stands where today's outline is and whether it is the same size.

The Preklapanje slojeva (layer swipe) tool in the left menu splits the map in two. Choose 1968 as the left layer and the latest image as the right one, then drag the line across the house.

If the house stood in 1968 but is larger today, the extension has to be dealt with separately. If it is not on the 1968 image, the 1968 rule does not apply to it.

If the house was built before 1968 and you are building a new one on the plot or rebuilding the old one, we obtain the occupancy permit for the old house as part of the design and include it in the design fee.

If the house has none of the documents from step one and was not built before 1968, check whether it is visible on the aerial survey of 21 June 2011. Since May 2026 such a house can be legalised again, with no deadline for the application. For a finished house the legalisation decision counts as a use act.

A house built after 21 June 2011 cannot be legalised. New building on the plot is then not approved while the old house stands: it has to be removed before construction or, where possible, after the new house is finished, with an obligation to remove it.