Montenegrin building charges look informal until you read the statute. They are not a service fee agreed with a manager. They are a statutory contribution, calculated on a defined formula, paid into a defined account, spent for defined purposes, and accounted for in a report you are entitled to see.
And one sentence in the middle of it decides something buyers and sellers argue about after completion: the owner who has disposed of the flat has no right to demand the money back.
How the share is calculated
Article 16(1) sets the allocation. The costs of regular maintenance, necessary works and urgent works on the building and the urban parcel are borne by unit owners in proportion to the share of the net area of their special parts in the area of all special parts, according to actual costs.
So the base is net area, and the reference is real spending — not a flat fee per door.
The point, and its floor
Article 16(2) then sets the monthly advance. Owners must pay a monthly amount into the building's joint account as an advance against those costs, at:
- 1 point per m² of net residential area, or of net business area;
- 0.5 points per m² of net non-residential area — which the statute lists as common attics, laundries, drying rooms, corridors, halls, basements, garages and garage places.
Article 16(3): the value of the point is determined by the assembly of unit owners — and it may not be less than €0.20.
That is the whole architecture: the statute fixes the multiplier per square metre and a floor for the point; the assembly fixes the point. Two identical flats in two buildings can therefore carry different monthly amounts entirely lawfully, because two assemblies valued the point differently.
Article 16(4) adds the exception a coastal buyer should look for: the value of the point may be determined by the contract transferring ownership of a special part in a building constructed in a tourist zone, or by a separate contract among unit owners. In a resort building, in other words, your monthly contribution may already have been set in your purchase contract — before any assembly voted on it. The same article of the statute lets the maintenance regime itself be fixed that way, as set out in how decisions get made.
Article 16(5) closes a gap that matters where garages are sold separately: the costs of regular, necessary and urgent works on special parts owned by only some unit owners — basements, garages, garage places — are borne by those owners.
| Element | The rule | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Allocation of actual costs | in proportion to net area of your special part | Art. 16(1) |
| Monthly advance, residential or business | 1 point per m² of net area | Art. 16(2) |
| Monthly advance, non-residential space | 0.5 points per m² | Art. 16(2) |
| Who sets the point's value | the assembly of unit owners | Art. 16(3) |
| Floor for the point | not less than €0.20 | Art. 16(3) |
| Tourist-zone building | the point may be set by the transfer contract | Art. 16(4) |
| Garages and basements owned by some | costs borne by those owners | Art. 16(5) |
Three paragraphs that change who pays, and how hard
Article 16 does not stop at paragraph five, and the rest of it matters more than the formula.
Paragraph 6 departs from the general rule entirely: exceptionally, the developer of the building is obliged to bear alone the costs of regular maintenance, necessary works and urgent works, to organise the maintenance, and to take steps to form the management organs — for one year from the day ownership of at least one special part is transferred from the developer to a buyer, or from the day that change is registered. Paragraph 7 requires the developer to notify the housing inspector of that first transfer within 15 days of its registration. In a new building, in other words, the first year is on the developer, and the clock started with the first sale, not with yours.
Paragraph 8 turns the bill into a title: the invoice for the amount of maintenance funds owed by unit owners or users is an enforceable instrument in enforcement proceedings.
Paragraph 9 allows the user rather than the owner to bear those costs where the user assumed the obligation by a contract on mutual rights — a lease can move the burden, but the charge stays on the building's books.
What the inspector does with all of this, and the fines behind it, is set out in the housing inspector, and who gets fined.
Where the money sits
Article 19 obliges the manager to open the building's joint account, into which the maintenance funds are paid.
Opening it is a small administrative chain worth knowing, because a building without an account is usually a building stuck somewhere in it. The manager, temporary manager or other person representing the building must apply to the competent local authority for the building's registration number and activity code within eight days of the building's entry in the register of residential buildings. The local authority must forward the application and the register extract to the statistics authority within eight days; the statistics authority must return the act determining the number and code within eight days; and the local authority must deliver that act to the applicant within eight days.
Article 17 covers who manages the money in the meantime: if management organs have not been formed, the funds deposited in the joint account are managed by the unit owners, or by the temporary manager.
Two rules that decide arguments
Article 17(2), in one sentence: a unit owner who has disposed of their special part of the building has no right to demand the return of funds from the joint account.
For a seller, that is the answer to "what happens to my balance" — nothing; it stays with the building. For a buyer, it is a reason to treat the building's accumulated fund as part of what you are acquiring, and to ask what is in it.
Article 17(3) is the other one: an owner at whose expense works were carried out on the common parts without the authorisation of the manager or the assembly has no right of recourse — except in the case of urgent works.
So the owner who fixes the roof alone and invoices the building afterwards is, as a rule, paying for it personally. The exception is urgent works, which the statute defines separately and narrowly; that boundary is examined in urgent works: who decides, who pays.
Article 17(4) also allows the funds for works to be secured by co-financing with interested persons, by credit on favourable terms which the local self-government unit may provide, and in other ways provided by law.
What the money may be spent on
Article 18 lists the purposes: regular maintenance; necessary works; urgent works; repayment of a loan taken to finance those costs; and other maintenance costs. And it states plainly that the manager disposes of the funds.
The loan line is worth noticing before a large façade or lift project: a building can borrow, and the repayment is a maintenance cost paid out of the same monthly contributions.
The report you are entitled to
Article 21 gives the accountability side. The manager must keep records of the use of maintenance funds, and must submit a written report to the assembly within 30 days of completing larger regular maintenance works, necessary works and urgent works — and an annual report.
The report must contain, in particular, the works performed, the prices of those works, and the state of the account. The assembly adopts the report and publishes it on the building's notice board, and every unit owner has the right to inspect it.
If you own a flat you do not visit often, that is the document to ask the manager for each year, and the one to request before you buy.
What to do with this
- Ask for the point's value, not the monthly figure. The figure follows from area × point; the point is what the assembly decided, and it cannot be below €0.20.
- In a tourist-zone building, read the transfer contract. It may have fixed the point (Article 16(4)) as well as the maintenance regime.
- Ask whether the joint account exists. Article 19 makes it the manager's duty; the eight-day chain explains most delays.
- If you are selling, do not budget for the balance. Article 17(2) leaves it with the building.
- Do not commission common-part works alone. Without authorisation there is no recourse, except for urgent works (Article 17(3)).
- Request the last report before completion. Works, prices and account balance are its required content (Article 21).
How that money is spent when something breaks, and who may act without a vote, is the subject of the next article. Who holds the account and what happens if no manager is ever appointed is in the upravnik.
Whose side we are on, and how we are paid
The people around a property transaction are mostly paid by the transaction. An agent's commission depends on the sale closing. A developer's sales team works for the developer. A building manager is engaged by the assembly, not by you individually.
We take no commission from sellers, developers, agents or intermediaries — not in any form and not on any file. Our only income is the fee you pay us, and it does not increase if you sign. Telling you not to proceed costs us nothing.
In practice that means we ask for the point's value and the last report before completion rather than after the first invoice, we read the transfer contract for a fixed point in tourist-zone buildings, and we put "this should not proceed" in writing when that is the answer. Where a matter requires representation before a Montenegrin authority or court, that work is carried out by an advocate admitted to the Montenegrin Bar, with whom we work on the file.
One boundary, and it is not negotiable: we are lawyers, not licensed investment advisers. We do not give personal advice on financial instruments and we do not tell you whether an asset will make money. What we protect is your legal position — title, contract, registration, status, and the deadlines that decide all four.
Before you agree a completion date
Send us the transfer contract, the net area from the register, and the last report from the building's notice board. We will tell you what the monthly contribution should be on the statutory formula, whether the point was fixed contractually, and what the building's fund is carrying. If a deadline is already running, say so when you write.
Statutory provisions are stated as at September 2026 and were read from the consolidated text of the Law on the Maintenance of Residential Buildings, Official Gazette of Montenegro 41/2016, 84/2018, 111/2022 (Constitutional Court decision U-I no. 40/20 of 28 July 2022), 140/2022 and 84/2024. A draft of a new act on the management and maintenance of residential buildings is in preparation and is not law. This page is general information on a statutory regime, not advice on a specific transaction.
