The European Commission in autumn is due to issue a monitoring report on Croatia's preparations to join the European Union, which is a chance for Slovenia to raise the issue of Slovenian-owned properties in Croatia, notably in the coastal county of Istria, the Ljubljana-based daily Delo said on Monday, adding that the issue was as important as one concerning Croatian deposits in the new defunct Slovenian bank Ljubljanska Banka.
According to some estimates, about 110,000 properties in Croatia, mostly holiday homes and tourist facilities in Istria, are owned by Slovenian nationals and their companies, the newspaper said.
Many of them registered their property in Croatian land books, but many still have problems, partly due to the lack of flexibility on the part of Croatian administration, while some are afraid for various reasons to discuss the problems they are encountering in their attempts to regulate the status of their property, Delo said.
"That might complicate relations with Zagreb. Croatia is awaiting a new monitoring report from Brussels in autumn and by then it has to explain what it has done in the area of real estate, even though the Croatian government boasts about progress in administrative procedures," it said.
The newspaper said that a member of the Slovenian parliament from the ruling coalition had recently put a question to the government about the fate of Slovenian holiday complexes in Istria since Slovenia and Croatia gained independence in the early 1990s and about the alleged disappearance of documents on Slovenian owners from Croatian official records.
"Croatia is going towards the European Union, but many Slovenians speak of alleged forgeries and disappearance of documents from Croatian land registries, municipal documents, and from many other official records of real estate," Delo said.
It noted that a new law on illegally constructed buildings would soon go into force in Croatia and that some of the Slovenian property owners in Croatia, especially those who do not have the necessary papers, were concerned about it.
For that reason the Slovenian consular service has advised Slovenian physical and natural persons who have such problems to initiate appropriate proceedings before an administrative body in the area where they own such property and to apply for its legalisation by the end of the year.
Delo said that the issue of nationalised property in Croatia owned by Slovenian nationals also remained unresolved.
