How to Check an Apartment Before Buying It

Checking an apartment is not a single action but three separate ones: verifying the ownership rights, verifying the property itself, and verifying the seller. Skipping any of them leads to different but equally expensive consequences.

Step one: the register of property rights

You always start with an extract from the State Register of Property Rights to Immovable Property. It shows the current owner, the grounds on which the right was acquired, the registration date, and any encumbrances.

Three things must match: the owner's surname in the register and in the passport of the person selling, the address and area of the property, and the absence of seizures, mortgages, and bans on alienation.

If the register shows a mortgage, the sale is only possible with the bank's written consent and with repayment of the loan as part of the deal. This is a workable arrangement, but it requires separate preparation and cannot be done in a single day.

Step two: the grounds for acquiring the right

Look at how the current owner obtained the apartment. A purchase and sale agreement is the most reassuring option. An inheritance, a gift agreement, and a court decision call for attention.

An inheritance is dangerous because heirs who did not manage to claim their rights in time may come forward. The window for challenging it is long, so an apartment inherited less than a year ago is checked with particular care, and the circle of heirs is established.

A court decision is checked in the Unified Register of Court Decisions: whether it has taken legal effect and whether it is being appealed.

Step three: who is registered in the apartment

A certificate of the registered occupants shows who is registered at the address. The main risk is minors and persons who retain the right to use the housing.

If a child is among the owners or the registered occupants, permission from the guardianship authority is required. Without it the deal will not go through, and if it goes through by circumventing this requirement, it can be challenged.

Separately, clarify whether all registered occupants are deregistered before the deal or when they commit to deregistering. This condition is written into the agreement with a deadline, otherwise you will have to evict them through the courts.

Step four: technical condition and redevelopment

The technical passport is compared against the actual layout of the apartment. A moved wall, a kitchen merged with a room, a relocated bathroom, a glazed balcony with the removed sill block, these are all forms of redevelopment that must be legalized.

Particular attention is paid to relocating wet zones and interfering with load bearing walls. The first cannot always be legalized, the second almost never can.

In the old housing stock of the city center, the type of floor structures is checked. Wooden floor structures limit both renovation and any future resale, as well as how banks view such a property.

Step five: debts and utilities

Obtain certificates confirming the absence of debt with all providers: gas, electricity, water, heating, waste removal, and building maintenance. The former owner's debt does not automatically pass to the new one, but providers often try to recover it from the apartment, and sorting it out takes time.

Separately, ask about contributions to capital repairs and decisions of the homeowners' association meetings. If the building has approved a decision on expensive work, it will be the new owner who has to pay.

Step six: the seller

Check the passport and tax number and reconcile the data with the register. If a representative is selling, check the power of attorney in the register of powers of attorney as of the date of the deal, because it could have been revoked the day before.

If the seller is married and the apartment was acquired during the marriage, notarized consent from the spouse is required. If they are divorced, check whether the property was divided.

Warning signs include haste, refusal to show original documents, a request to understate the amount in the agreement, and reluctance to sign a preliminary agreement. Each of these signs on its own is not yet a reason to walk away, two together already are.