The price list says "berth". The brochure says "ownership". The contract, when it finally arrives, says neither — and by then a deposit has usually moved.
There is nothing irregular about buying a berth in Montenegro. There is something specific about what you get, and it is not the thing most buyers picture. What you acquire sits at the end of a chain that starts with the state, passes through the marina, and reaches you third. Every limit in this article follows from that position.
The general question — what the coastal zone is and why nobody owns it — is set out on our page on coastal property rights. This page is about the berth: the contract you sign, the term you inherit, and the four things that surprise buyers on the way out.
References are to the Law on the Maritime Domain (Zakon o morskom dobru), Official Gazette of the Republic of Montenegro nos. 14/92, 59/92 and 27/94, and Official Gazette of Montenegro nos. 51/08, 21/09, 73/10 and 40/11.
The chain, in the order it actually runs
The state. The coastal strip is morsko dobro. Under Article 7, the maritime domain or a part of it may be given for use to a legal or natural person, domestic or foreign, for economic or other permitted activity, or for mooring a vessel. Note what the statute offers: use. Not title.
Note also who it names. The article says "domestic or foreign" in the same breath. This is not a restriction aimed at foreigners — a Montenegrin buyer is in exactly the same position. The limit is on the kind of right that exists there at all. The rules that genuinely do turn on nationality sit elsewhere, and we set them out on our page on whether foreigners can buy property in Montenegro.
The marina. Article 8 sets out exactly how this works. The Government of Montenegro adopts a decision regulating the conditions, the period of use and the amount of the fee; in accordance with that decision, the public enterprise concludes the contract on use of the maritime domain with the user. The marina therefore holds a use right with a defined end date, on terms it did not write and cannot rewrite.
The same article says where your money goes. The fee for use of the maritime domain is revenue of the public enterprise, applied to the protection, arrangement and improvement of the domain and to infrastructure built for its purposes. That is worth knowing when a berth is presented as an investment in an asset: part of what is being charged is a public-domain fee, spent on the domain.
You. Whatever the marina sells you is carved out of that. It is derivative by construction. A right cannot be granted for longer than the right it comes from — so the first question in any berth negotiation is not the price. It is: when does the marina's own right end, and may I see the decision that says so?
That question is answerable. Articles 13 and 14 establish a separate cadastre of the maritime domain, kept by the cadastre authority, recording the domain and the structures on it. "This is outside the maritime domain" is a claim to be checked in a public register, not accepted across a table. What that looks like on a real site is set out in our Verige and Kostanjica guide.
What the sales language says, and what the statute grants
| What the brochure suggests | What the law actually provides | Where |
|---|---|---|
| You buy a berth | The maritime domain may be given for use, to domestic or foreign persons alike — never owned | Art. 7 |
| The term is yours to set | The Government fixes the conditions, the period and the fee; the public enterprise signs the contract | Art. 8 |
| You can resell it | No transfer of rights and obligations without the consent of the public enterprise | Art. 9 |
| Improvements add to your asset | Structures built there become part of the maritime domain | Art. 7 |
| If it ends, you are bought out | No compensation is payable for funds invested | Art. 12 |
| The beach comes with it | An arranged bathing place may be enclosed, but must stay accessible to everyone on equal terms | Art. 16 |
Four things that surprise buyers
1. You cannot simply sell it on
Article 9 is short and decisive: a user of the maritime domain may not transfer its rights and obligations to another person without the consent of the public enterprise.
Read that against the resale story most buyers are told. Your exit is not a matter between you and your buyer. A third party — one with no obligation to be quick, and its own view of who should hold the position — sits in the middle of it. Any berth valuation that assumes a liquid secondary market is assuming away Article 9.
2. What you build there stops being yours
Structures may be erected in the maritime domain with the required planning and building approvals. Article 7 then does something unusual: those structures become part of the maritime domain.
The pontoon, the finger, the service building — improved, extended, financed by you — merge into the thing you do not own. This is the provision that turns "we upgraded our berth" from an investment into a contribution.
3. The right can end without anyone breaching anything
Article 10 lists six situations in which use of the maritime domain ends by operation of law, including:
- the expiry of the term for which it was granted;
- the death or dissolution of the user, where no legal successor requests transfer of the approval within three months;
- deregistration of the business activity the use relates to;
- the user's own withdrawal;
- completion of the research or other work the decision specified;
- failure to conclude the contract on use of the maritime domain.
Article 11 adds early withdrawal, in whole or in part, where the user does not use the domain on the conditions set in the decision. None of this requires fault in the ordinary sense. Term expiry is simply a date.
4. When it ends, nothing comes back
Article 12 is the one to read before signing anything. Where the right of use has ended by operation of law under Article 10, or has been withdrawn under Article 11, the user is not entitled to compensation for the funds invested.
Put the three together — the structures become part of the domain (Article 7), the right ends on a date (Article 10), no compensation is payable (Article 12) — and the shape of the asset is clear. It is a right to use something for a period, priced up front, with the improvements staying behind.
The "private" marina question
Buyers who have been shown a fenced, equipped waterfront often assume exclusivity comes with the berth. Article 16 classifies bathing places as natural, arranged or built. An arranged bathing place may be fenced and fitted out with cabins, sanitary facilities and showers — and the same provision requires it to be accessible to everyone under equal conditions.
An enclosed, equipped, paid facility is not irregular; the statute contemplates it. Exclusivity in the sense the word "private" suggests to a buyer is a different claim, and it is not one the statute supports.
What to ask for before the deposit
Three documents answer nearly everything, and none of them is the brochure:
- The marina's own title to the domain — the government decision and the contract with the public enterprise, showing the term and the conditions. Your right is capped by this one.
- An extract from the maritime domain cadastre for the location, so the boundary is established from the public record rather than from a site plan.
- The draft berth agreement itself, read for three things specifically: what happens on expiry of the marina's right, what Article 9 consent process applies to your exit, and who owns what you install.
If a seller cannot produce the first, the other two do not matter yet.
Whose side we are on, and how we are paid
Almost everyone else in this transaction is paid by it. The broker's commission depends on the sale closing. The marina's sales desk works for the marina. The notary's duty runs to the transaction, not to you. None of that is scandalous, but it is worth knowing before you treat any of them as your adviser.
We take no commission from sellers, developers, brokers, marinas or intermediaries — in no form, on no file. Our only income is the fee you pay us, and it does not rise if you sign. Telling you that a berth is a use right with an expiry date, and that nothing is refunded when it ends, costs us nothing.
One boundary that is not negotiable: we are lawyers, not licensed investment advisers. We do not give personal investment advice on financial instruments and we do not tell you whether an asset will hold its value. What we protect is your legal position — title, contract, registration, status, and the deadlines that decide all four.
How we open this file
Our first output is not a meeting, it is a written legal position. Send us the draft berth agreement, the marina's decision and contract for the domain if you have been given them, and the location. In return you get a scoped piece of work: what the term actually is, what your exit depends on, what happens to anything you install, and where a defect can be cured and how long the cure takes.
We do not give free consultations. In a file like this the first hour is examination, not sales, and whoever gives that away is either not examining or being paid by someone else. If the yacht rather than the berth is the question, the flag and charter side is set out on our yacht registration and charter page.
