Acquisition of Real Estate of Foreign Natural Person in Hungary

The rules of the land acquisition in Hungary are depending on the citizenship of the purchaser and the kind of the property.

Non-citizens typically need to fulfil additional obligations to acquire the ownership of properties. According to the regulation, non citizens are natural people, they are not the citizens of a member state of the European Union, of the European Economic Area or an other country, which is party of such an international contract, that provides them the status of an EU or an EEA state. The most important difference between the land acquisition of citizens and non citizens is that non citizens need the approval of the appropriate government agency.
Although, the rules above refer only to properties, which are not considered as farmland, because foreign citizens can not acquire the ownership of that.
Let’s overview the procedure, which you need to go trough to get the approval of the government agency, starting with to the documents you need to file.

I. Necessary documents to get the licence:

1. Application
To start the procedure, you need to file an application to the appropriate government agency, using the schedule attached to the regulation. Besides, you also need to lodge the following attachments:

2. Charge
The authorization process is chargeable, which means, that you need to pay 50.000 HUF after every property, which ownership you would like to acquire.

3. Valid travel document or personal identification card
You need to attach the notarial certified copy of your passport, your driving license or your personal identification card to your application.

4. Precontract, contract or a declaration according to Attachment 2 of the government regulation
You need to attach an original or notarial certified copy of the contract about the transfer of the ownership. If you don’t have the contract, the owner of the property needs to deliver a statement, in which he/she declares, that /he/she wants to transfer the ownership of the property.

5. Certified land register record (not older than 21 days) or a document, that certifies the payment of the fee
The record, you attach to your application, can not be older than 21 days. On the other hand, the government agency takes ex officio measures to get the record, if you pay a fee of 3600 HUF. In that case, you will need to attach the document, that certifies the payment of the fee.

6. Proxy
If you don’t want to participate in the procedure personally, you need to attach the original copy of the document, in which you give authorization to somebody to represent your interests during the procedure.

II. The procedure

First of all the government agency proves, whether the documents you filed are in accordance with the provisions of the relevant regulation. The deadline of the processing takes 15 days. The agency needs to approve the land acquisition, if it doesn’t offends the Hungarian common weal an the interests of the appropriate municipality. The land acquisition offends the common weal, if the applicant has a criminal record, or has a record in the register of the immigration agency or the police headquarters.

Questions regarding acquiring of real estates in Hungary? Contact us!
E:dobos@doboslegal.eu
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