Real Estate

Real Estate

Expat advisors offers assistance to expats and foreigners with their real estate matters in the Czech Republic. Our real estate team can assist you with location of the required real estate (apartments, houses, plots of land for construction, commercial real estate (including hotels), lease of offices, real estate due diligence, etc.) in the Czech Republic and we can also arrange asset management of your real estate in Prague (leasing, rent collection, condominium fee payments, representation at condominium meetings and other matters. We also offer complete legal services connected to real estate through our legal branch rutland & partners, where our lawyers have more than 20 years experience on the Czech market. Our services are effective and affordable. Expat advisors provide one stop shop solutions for acquisition and management of your real estate in the Czech Republic from purchase, through management, to its disposal.

Key contacts

Monika Rutland is a Czech and US lawyer active on the Czech market since 1992 and has been advising expats for a number of years with respect to real estate transactions. These include the purchase and sale of apartments, commercial properties, leasing, construction agreements and construction disputes. In addition, she specializes in corporate matters that might be relevant to expats, namely foundation and liquidation of Czech companies, shareholder matters, including articles of association, joint venture agreements and shareholder disputes. She also has extensive experience in the field of immigration as she founded the first law firm that specializes in the comprehensive immigration law agenda in the Czech Republic, based on her experience in the US.

 

 

Scope of Services

 

 

Agency Services

 

The real estate market in the Czech Republic and especially in Prague is highly competetive. Due to our experience and local knowledge we are able to provide clients with tailored solutions for their real estate acquisitions. Market knowledge (pricing, trends, new development locations) is of great benefit to our clients, to whom we can offer bespoke assistance. Quick response and execution of transactions is also a key to sucessful closing nowadays. Local knowledge also enables us to advise on the reliability of your commecrial partners in the Czech Republic.

 

We provide assistance with:

 

  • apartment and house location in Prague, including communication with real estate agencies
  • mortgages (we can quickly evaluate if you are entitled to receive a mortgage from any Czech bank)
  • private and commercial leases (apartment leases, shop leases, office leases, hotel leases), communication with agents
  • condominium asset management (leasing, rent collection, condominium fee payments, representation at condominium meetings)
  • location and tenders for commercial real estate (assistance with tender documents)
  • real estate tax registration and filings

 

 

Real Estate Legal Services

 

Once you locate the real estate you like and consider buying or sell, you need the reliable and efficient legal advice of a Czech real estate lawyer. The sale of real estate is relatively easy but in the Czech Republic is highly technical. Foreigners can own real estate assets in the Czech Republic directly or within a corporation without any special legal limitations. However, you need to be careful about the proof of ownership and encumbrances, which must be assured. The Registration of the real estate in the Czech Cadaster is not a proof of ownership. Therefore even minimal due diligence is usually necessary to avoid any future problems. Also, for any construction in the Czech Republic, you have to go through an extremely technical procedure to obtain a zoning and construction permit. Here you often need qualified legal assistance if there is opposition to your building plan from the neighbors or local authorities

 

  • real estate due diligence (alwyas necessary to a certain extent, even if you are buying only an apartment, as you can inherit prior unpaid condominium fees)
  • company due diligence in case you buy real estate in a company (legal, tax and financial)
  • purchase and sale agreements of apartments, individual houses, plots of land
  • negotiating a mortgage with your bank
  • providing escrow services and preparing escrow agreements in cases of asset transactions (necessary in any Czech real estate asset deal)
  • assistance with closing your real estate transaction
  • leases of apartmensts, individual houses and offices
  • leases of commercial real estate (shops, offices, hotels, and other commercial premises)
  • construction agreements with suppliers
  • condominium assitance (representing client at the condominium meetings, filing actions and claims against condominium)

 

 

Litigation

 

Sometimes things go wrong. A competent Czech litigator can assure that you reach a good settlement of your case as litigation can get expensive. We try to provide our clients always with reasonable advice on the success of their case and the cost of the procedure if they decide to pursue litigation. Usually we try to find the most effective way to resolve the client‘s matter without unncessary costs, as the procedure in front of the Czech courts can be very lenghty and the result is not always certain. However, with zoning and construction permits, litigation with local administration is usually necessary and we are specialists in such matters. It is an unfortunate reality that often the local authorities will only take you seriously if you sue them.

 

  • real estate title litigation
  • lease validity litigation
  • litigation with construction suppliers
  • administrative litigation with Czech authorities regarding construction permits

rutland & partners

rutland & partners is supporting its affiliate Expat Advisors s.r.o. with legal services in the Czech Republic. Law firm rutland & partners has been on the market 9 years (formerly law firm rutland jezek). In course of its existence it has advised hundreds of expats and foreigners in connection with Czech immigration, real estate, family, employment law and wills & trusts. It has extensive experience with all expat and foreigner issues in the Czech Republic from Czech long term visa, divorce in the Czech Republic, Czech child custody issues and expat employment terminations. It had also completed over 200 real estate purchases and sales of apartments and houses in Prague both for expats and foreigners.