Residential property purchase deals are suspended
2013.01.09
www.infolex.lt, Lzinios.lt
This day alterations to the Law on Construction have become effective. So from now it is only possible to sell or rent property after receipt of an energy performance certificate. However, according to data of the Centre of Registers, currently less than 0,5 % of items of immovable property in Lithuania have such documents.
Lithuanian Chamber of Notaries (LCN) announced yesterday that from this day any real estate transactions are not to be made if property owners fail to provide energy performance certificates. Real estate agencies are uptight about quite a number of difficulties and misunderstandings that people, who want to make a property sale and purchase transaction, are going to have for at least some time.
Further waste of time
New provisions of law will significantly slow down and increase prices for real estate procedures. “Those who wish to sell buildings are going to suffer waste of time and extra costs as they will have to apply to energy efficiency experts,” LCN president Marius Stračkaitis explained.
It costs 200-400 Litas and takes 3-4 days to calculate energy efficiency of a separate apartment in an apartment building. Within this period premises are inspected, necessary documents are collected, and a certificate is issued. A price of notary’s services used for executing a real estate transaction is said not to be raised.
M. Stračkaitis states that new procedure is meaningless, so LCN in its turn is going to inform state institutions and legislators about imperfection of such provisions of legislative acts. “Most buildings located in Lithuania are old ones and energetically inefficient. It is only reasonable to demand energy performance certificates when transferring newly built buildings or renovated buildings, when a buyer or a lessee gets certain energy efficiency guarantees for a building or an apartment,”- he assured.
Bureaucratic inconvenience expected
A director of a real estate agency “Apus Turtas” Giedrius Bagociunas said to LZ that today customers are not to avoid misunderstandings. “Misunderstandings will surely occur as even now most owners and buyers hear about certification for the first time during their meeting at a notary bureau. Earlier they mostly refused energy efficiency certification. However, according to the new procedure it is not allowed to do so,” G. Bagociunas stated to LZ. Nevertheless, according to him, such certification should not have a significant impact on the market value of property. “It is likely that real estate owners will wish to regain their expenses for a certificate from buyers, so several hundreds Litas could be added to a price of property,” director of “Apus Turtas” mentioned. <…>