"The cadastre is wrong" describes three different legal problems, and they do not share a procedure, a forum or a deadline. Choosing the wrong one usually means discovering the right one after its clock has run.
Article numbers below come from the consolidated Zakon o državnom premjeru i katastru nepokretnosti, read on 5 September 2026. The chain is "Službeni list RCG" 029/07 of 25.05.2007, then "Službeni list CG" 073/10 of 10.12.2010, 032/11 of 01.07.2011, 040/11 of 08.08.2011, 043/15 of 31.07.2015, 037/17 of 14.06.2017 (twice — the spatial data infrastructure act and a separate amending act), 017/18 of 20.03.2018, 084/24 of 06.09.2024 and 160/25 of 30.12.2025. The consolidation used here incorporates that last amendment, which matters because it is recent enough that most published commentary predates it. General information, not advice on a specific file.
First, separate the three problems
Problem one: the entry does not match the decision. A registration decision (rješenje) was issued, it said one thing, and what reached the sheet says another — a wrong surname, a wrong share, a wrong parcel number, a missing burden. Nobody disputes the underlying decision.
Problem two: the decision itself was wrong. The authority allowed a registration it should have refused, or refused one it should have allowed, on the documents in front of it.
Problem three: the decision was correct on its face, but the entry infringes someone's ownership. The document presented was formally in order, the authority did what the file required, and the person whose right was displaced was never a party to any of it — the classic case being an heir, a spouse or a co-owner who was not on the paperwork.
Each has its own route.
Route one — correction under Article 124
Article 124(1) provides that where the data from the registration decision have been inaccurately entered into the cadastre, the error may be corrected ex officio or on the request of an interested person. Article 124(2) requires a decision (rješenje) to be issued on that correction.
Read the limb carefully, because it is narrower than the word "correction" suggests. Article 124 addresses the gap between the decision and the entry. It is not a route to attack the decision, and an application under it will not get you a re-examination of whether the registration should have been allowed. Where the decision is the problem, Article 124 is the wrong door.
The advantage is that it has no stated deadline in the provision and can be started by the authority itself, which makes it the fastest route when it genuinely applies.
Route two — the appeal, and the eight days that decide whether you have one
Article 125(1) gives eight days from receipt of the decision to lodge an appeal. Article 125(2) routes it to the Ministry, through the first-instance authority that made the decision.
Article 125(3) then lists four situations in which the appeal does not suspend execution of the registration decision:
- enforceable court decisions;
- registrations carried out by operation of law;
- annotations (zabilježbe) in the cadastre;
- notarial deeds carrying a clausula intabulandi.
That last item matters in ordinary conveyancing, because a Montenegrin purchase deed with a registration clause falls squarely inside it: the appeal is heard, but the buyer is registered in the meantime.
Two safeguards sit alongside. Article 125(5) requires the appeal against a registration decision to be annotated ex officio, and Article 125(6) deletes that annotation when the decision becomes enforceable — so the fact that a decision is under challenge is visible on the sheet to anyone who reads it. And Article 126 provides that an action in an administrative dispute, and extraordinary remedies against a final decision of the administrative court, are annotated in the G list with the legal effect of an annotation of dispute — entered ex officio or on a party's request.
Article 127 sets out what a second-instance decision does. Where it annuls a registration decision under Articles 122 and 123, it orders the deletion of the entry, restoration of the previous state, and deletion of the appeal annotation. Where it rejects the appeal, it orders deletion of the appeal annotation. Where it varies a decision refusing registration, it orders the registration that was originally sought, and deletion of the annotation.
Eight days is short, it runs from receipt rather than from discovery, and an owner who is not a party to the file will frequently not receive anything at all. Which is why the third route exists.
Route three — the deletion claim under Article 124a
Article 124a(1): a person who considers that the registration of an ownership right in the cadastre has infringed their own ownership right may bring an action before the competent court seeking deletion of the entry and restoration of the previous state.
Article 124a(2): on the request of an interested person, an annotation of the deletion claim is entered in the cadastre. That annotation is what stops the problem compounding while the case runs, and its practical effect belongs to the wider annotation regime we set out in what a Montenegrin register can be made to record.
Article 124a(3): the action may be brought within three years of the day of learning of the entry that was made.
Three features of that deadline are worth stating plainly. It runs from knowledge of the entry, not from the entry itself — so an entry made years ago is not automatically safe from challenge. It is a single period with no stated long-stop inside Article 124a. And it is a different clock from the possession-based periods that can defeat the claim from the other side; those run for the possessor and are set out in wrong entries, good faith and the clocks that decide. A claimant who waits is not only losing their own three years; they may be funding someone else's.
The three routes side by side
| Art. 124 correction | Art. 125 appeal | Art. 124a deletion claim | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it attacks | The entry, where it does not match the decision | The decision | The entry, where it infringes ownership |
| Who decides | The administrative authority | The Ministry, then the administrative court (Art. 126) | The competent court |
| Deadline | None stated in Art. 124 | Eight days from receipt (Art. 125(1)) | Three years from learning of the entry (Art. 124a(3)) |
| Who can start it | The authority ex officio, or an interested person | A party to the registration decision | Anyone whose ownership right is infringed |
| Visible on the sheet | Through the correction decision | Appeal annotated ex officio (Art. 125(5)) | Annotation on request (Art. 124a(2)) |
Why the annotation, not the claim, is what protects the position
Filing the Article 124a action does not by itself stop the property being sold on. The provision that does is the annotation of dispute.
Article 104(1) describes it: an entry making visible that proceedings are running, before a court or other competent authority, whose outcome could affect the registration, belonging, existence, scope, content or limitation of a registered right. Article 104(2) then gives it its force — a final judgment or enforceable decision made on that claim also operates against persons who acquired rights in the property after the request for the annotation was filed. Article 104(3) adds that the right awarded takes the priority position secured by the annotation.
Article 105(1) allows it on proof that the proceedings are running. Article 105(2) deletes it if the claimant withdraws or the claim is finally rejected. And Article 105(3) completes the mechanism: where the proceedings end in an enforceable decision that would change the entry, the change is registered and the annotation and every entry requested after the annotation request was filed are deleted.
There is a fourth clock hiding here. Article 106(1) deletes an annotation of dispute ex officio after five years from its entry. Article 106(2) allows renewal with the same priority where the dispute is shown not to be finally concluded, and Article 106(3) requires the authority, in deciding renewal, to weigh the length of the dispute, the right to peaceful enjoyment of property, the right to a trial within a reasonable time, and the passivity of the party who obtained the annotation. Article 106(4) lets a party with a legal interest seek deletion even before the dispute ends, judged on the same criteria. A slow claimant can therefore lose the protection while still holding the claim.
The remedy the Act does not contain
The question foreign owners ask next is who pays for the loss — the months of blocked sale, the collapsed financing, the professional fees.
We read the Act for that provision and did not find one. There is no compensation article, no register guarantee and no indemnity fund in this statute, and no provision stating that a person who relies in good faith on the register is protected against the true owner. That absence is the answer to the question, not a gap in our reading of it: the Montenegrin cadastre does not carry the state-backed guarantee that owners familiar with a Torrens-style register expect.
What remains is the general law of obligations. Damage caused by a public authority's conduct is approached through the ordinary rules — including the presumption of fault in Article 148(1) of the Zakon o obligacionim odnosima, and Article 166(1), which makes a legal person liable for damage its organ causes to a third party in performing or in connection with performing its functions. Whether those rules produce a recovery on particular facts is a question for the file and the evidence, and we are not going to state an outcome here that the statute does not supply.
The practical consequence is about sequencing rather than pessimism. Because the register does not indemnify, the money is protected before completion — by reading the sheet, by the annotations, and by the contractual structure — rather than afterwards by a claim against the state.
Two provisions people meet without noticing
Article 122(1) sets out when a registration request is granted: where the cadastre data disclose no obstacle to the entry, where the request corresponds to the content of the submitted document, and where the document satisfies the conditions for registration by type, form and content. Article 122(2) then gives the authority 15 days from receipt of the request to decide. That is the benchmark against which a delayed file is chased, and it is short enough that most applicants do not realise it exists.
Article 124b obliges the authority to send registration decisions concerning rights in immovable property, ex officio, to the Tax Administration and to the competent local tax authority. Registration is therefore not a private step with tax consequences to be arranged later; the notification is automatic and built into the procedure.
Before you file anything
If a Montenegrin ownership sheet shows something you did not agree to, the first question is which of the three problems you actually have, because the answer decides both the forum and how much time is left. Send us the list nepokretnosti, the registration decision if you received one, and the date you first learned of the entry, and we will identify whether Article 124 reaches it, whether the Article 125(1) eight-day appeal is still open, and where the Article 124a(3) three-year period stands — together with whether an annotation should be entered now to stop the position deteriorating. How to read the sheet itself is in the list nepokretnosti check, the inheritance version of the same problem in the unregistered inheritance title problem, and how we run these files sits with our title cancellation and registration practice.
