An owner who lives abroad usually discovers the problem late. A tenant whose lease ended stays on. A relative who was given the keys to look after the house starts treating it as theirs. A seller hands over the money-side of the deal but not the flat. Someone simply moves into a village house that has stood empty since the owner's parents died. By the time the owner reads about the thirty-day possession remedy, the thirty days are long gone, and the natural conclusion is that the law has closed the door.
It has not. Montenegro's Property Act — the Zakon o svojinsko-pravnim odnosima (ZSPO), Sl. list CG 19/2009 and 29/2025 — gives the owner a separate action whose whole point is that it does not expire. This note sets out that action (Articles 112 to 122), its companion for interference that stops short of taking the property (Articles 126 to 129), the settlement of fruits and expenses between owner and occupier, and the one defence that can genuinely defeat an owner who waits too long.
The text used here is the 2009 act as registered on the Official Gazette portal with status Važeći (in force). The 2025 amendment touches only Articles 415, 416 and 422a, on foreign ownership of land; every article cited in this note stands in its 2009 wording. Law as read on 25 September 2026.
Two actions, two clocks
Montenegrin law protects the person who holds a property and the person who owns it through two different lawsuits, and they are easy to confuse.
The possessory action — spor zbog smetanja državine — protects the fact of holding. Under Article 404 it must be filed within 30 days of learning of the disturbance and the person responsible, and in any case within one year of the disturbance itself. Under Article 405 the court looks only at the last state of possession and the disturbance: the right to possess, the legal basis and good faith are irrelevant. We have set that remedy out in detail in our note on disturbance of possession.
The owner's action — tužba za povraćaj stvari — protects the right. It is slower, because the owner has to prove ownership, but Article 121 states that the right to bring it does not become time-barred. Article 129 says the same of the action against interference.
| Possessory action | Owner's action | |
|---|---|---|
| Statutory basis | ZSPO Articles 403-411 | ZSPO Articles 112-122 |
| What is protected | The fact of holding | The right of ownership |
| Deadline | 30 days from knowledge, 1 year at most (Art. 404) | None — does not time-bar (Art. 121) |
| What the claimant proves | Last possession and the disturbance | Ownership and the defendant's factual control (Art. 112) |
| Relevance of title and good faith | None (Art. 405) | Central |
| Registered owner not in possession vs. actual holder | Holder is protected against the registered owner (Art. 409) | Owner may sue the holder |
The last row is the one absent owners miss. Article 409 gives the actual possessor possessory protection against a person registered in the cadastre who is not in possession of the property. Being on the title does not make you the possessor. If you were not holding the property when the occupier moved in, the fast remedy may not be yours at all, and the owner's action is the route the statute leaves open.
What the owner has to prove
Article 112 is short. The owner may sue the possessor for the return of an individually determined thing, and must prove two facts: that they hold the right of ownership, and that the thing is in the defendant's factual control.
For real estate, the first fact is normally proved from the register. Under Article 84, ownership of immovable property acquired by legal transaction is acquired by entry in the real estate cadastre, or in another manner prescribed by law. That is why the case begins with a current extract — see how to read a list nepokretnosti — and why a gap in the register becomes a gap in the lawsuit. Two situations produce that gap regularly:
- Heirs whose title was never registered. The estate may be settled in fact but the register still shows the deceased. Closing that first is often the real work; see the unregistered inheritance problem.
- A register entry that is itself wrong. If the occupier is registered and you say they should not be, the dispute is about the entry, not about possession; see when a land register entry is wrong.
Co-owners have a standing rule of their own. Article 130 gives each co-owner an action to protect ownership of the whole thing, and a co-owner an action to protect their own share. The same article then requires that, in disputes between third parties and co-owners concerning rights in the common thing, all co-owners be joined as necessary co-parties. How those two sentences combine on a particular claim is a question for the litigating lawyer on the actual file; in practice, siblings who inherited together should expect to act together. Our note on co-ownership shares and forced division covers the internal side.
Who is in the property decides which route fits
The ZSPO classifies the person holding a property more finely than everyday language does, and the classification changes the strategy.
| Who is holding | How the ZSPO sees them | Practical route |
|---|---|---|
| Former tenant who stayed on | Holder of a narrower right (Art. 387); the owner was the indirect possessor (Art. 386) | Contract route on the lease and/or the owner's action |
| Caretaker, housekeeper or employee holding the keys on instructions | Not a possessor at all; possession is the principal's (Art. 393), and the status is presumed to continue (Art. 394) | The owner's own possession continues; act quickly if the caretaker changes position |
| Relative or friend who moved in with permission | Depends on the arrangement actually made | Owner's action once permission is withdrawn |
| Seller who did not hand over after the sale | Depends on whether the buyer is already registered (Art. 84) | Contract claim on the sale; owner's action once registered |
| Squatter who entered by force, secretly or by abuse of trust | Manljiva possession (Art. 391) | Possessory action if within Art. 404; otherwise owner's action |
| Neighbour using part of your land or running something across it | Interference without taking | Action against interference (Arts. 126-129) |
The tenant row deserves a word of caution. A lease runs on its own rules of termination and notice under the Law on Obligations, and the lease and the ownership action are not alternatives the owner must choose between once and for all. What the ZSPO adds is that, once the tenant's right to hold has ended, the owner does not depend on the lease deadlines to recover the property. If you are buying rather than recovering, the question arises from the other side; see buying a property with a tenant in place.
Good faith or bad faith: what comes back with the property
Once the owner wins, the occupier has to return more than the keys. Articles 113 to 118 settle the accounts, and almost every line turns on one word: savjestan (in good faith) or nesavjestan (in bad faith). Under Article 390, possession is in good faith when the holder does not know and cannot know that they are not entitled to the right they are exercising — and good faith is presumed. The owner who wants the bad-faith consequences has to prove bad faith.
| Item | Good-faith possessor | Bad-faith possessor |
|---|---|---|
| Fruits (e.g. rent collected, harvest) | Hands over only fruits not yet gathered (Art. 113) | Hands over all fruits, and pays the value of those consumed, disposed of, destroyed or not gathered (Art. 113) |
| Compensation for use | Not owed (Art. 114) | Owed (Art. 114) |
| Deterioration or loss of the property | Not liable for what happened while in good faith (Art. 114) | Liable, unless the damage would have occurred with the owner too (Art. 114) |
| Necessary expenses (upkeep) | Reimbursed, net of benefits already drawn from the property (Art. 115) | Only those the owner would also have had (Art. 115) |
| Useful expenses | Reimbursed up to the increase in value, net of benefits drawn (Art. 116) | Only if useful to the owner personally (Art. 116) |
| Luxury expenses | Only if value increased; may remove what separates without damage (Art. 117) | Not reimbursed; may remove what separates without damage (Art. 117) |
| Right to keep the property until paid | Yes, for necessary and useful expenses (Art. 118) | No |
Two rules move the line between the columns. First, Article 120: a good-faith possessor becomes a bad-faith possessor from the moment the claim is served on them, though the owner may prove that bad faith began earlier. Every month the owner delays filing is, in principle, a month in which a good-faith occupier owes nothing for use. Second, the occupier's retention right in Article 118 is real leverage: an occupier who renovated a roof in good faith can hold the property until the necessary and useful expenses are paid. An owner who is surprised by that claim at the hearing has usually not asked the right questions before filing.
The clocks that do run
The action itself never expires, but three claims attached to it do:
- Occupier's claim for necessary and useful expenses — three years from the day the property is handed over (Article 119).
- Owner's claim against a bad-faith possessor for fruits and their value — three years from handover (Article 122(1)).
- Bad-faith possessor's claim for expenses — three years from handover (Article 122(2)).
For a damages claim based on interference, Article 128 refers to the general rules on compensation, which carry their own limitation periods under the Law on Obligations; see limitation periods for claims in Montenegro.
The defence that can defeat an owner who waits: održaj
"Never time-bars" has one important qualification. The owner's action protects ownership, and ownership can pass to the occupier by acquisitive prescription — održaj. If that happens, the owner does not lose the action to a deadline; they lose the ownership the action depends on.
Articles 53 and 54 set the periods for immovable property:
- Ordinary održaj — a possessor who is both in good faith and lawful acquires ownership after ten years (Article 53(2)). Possession is lawful when it rests on a valid legal basis for acquiring the right being exercised (Article 389).
- Extraordinary održaj — a possessor in good faith acquires ownership after twenty years (Article 54(2)).
Both routes require good faith. A person who took the property knowing it was not theirs is not a good-faith possessor under Article 390, and the ZSPO gives them no route to ownership by time. That is the answer to the most common fear: a squatter who knows the house belongs to someone else does not become the owner by staying long enough. The difficulty is evidential, not legal. Good faith is presumed, so it is the owner who must show the occupier knew or could have known.
Three further rules shape the timing. The period starts on the day the possessor entered into possession (Article 56). The time of predecessors who held as good-faith possessors counts towards it (Article 57), so an occupier can build on a parent's holding. And interruption and suspension follow the rules on limitation of claims (Article 58). Under those rules, in the Law on Obligations, the running period is interrupted by a lawsuit and by other acts before a competent authority (Article 397) — but not by a written or oral demand to the debtor (Article 400). Read together, the practical lesson is blunt: a lawyer's letter demanding that the occupier leave is useful evidence that the occupier knew, but on its own it is not what stops the clock. Filing is.
Interference without taking: the action against disturbance
Not every problem is someone living in the property. A neighbour runs a pipe across your plot, uses your land as a driveway, or builds a fence a metre inside your line. Article 126 gives the owner — and a proprietary possessor — an action to stop a third party who unfoundedly disturbs them in a way other than by taking the property. In that action, the plaintiff's good faith and the lawfulness of their possession are presumed.
Article 127 then puts the burden where the owner wants it: the defendant must prove the existence of a right of their own whose exercise causes the interference — a servitude, for example. An entry in the public register is proof of such a right. So the first step in an access or pipeline dispute is the same extract of the register: if the neighbour has no registered servitude, they must prove one some other way. Damages for the interference follow the general rules (Article 128), and the action does not time-bar (Article 129).
Where the "interference" is noise, smoke or vibration rather than a physical intrusion, the neighbour-law rules in Article 266 are the better-fitting tool, and they come with an important exception for permitted activities; see neighbour and common-area disputes. Where the neighbour has actually built on your land, building on land that is not yours covers what the court can order.
The Publician action, for the owner whose title is imperfect
Articles 123 to 125 add a narrower claim that exists in most civil-law systems. Under Article 123(1), a person who acquired an individually determined thing on a legal basis and in a lawful manner, and who did not know and could not have known that they had not become owner, may recover it even from a good-faith possessor who holds without a legal basis or on a weaker one. Under Article 123(2), a person whose possession qualifies for extraordinary održaj may recover the thing from someone whose possession does not. Where both sides have equal possession, Article 124 prefers the one who acquired for value over the one who acquired gratuitously, and if the bases are equal, the one who holds the thing wins.
This is not a shortcut for a buyer who has paid and simply not yet registered. Whether such a buyer meets the "did not know and could not have known" condition is not answered by the text, and we do not assume it is met. The claim matters where title turns out to be defective after the fact — for example, when a chain of transfers is attacked.
Where the case is heard
A claim to recover Montenegrin real estate is heard in Montenegro. Article 119(1) of the Law on Private International Law (Zakon o međunarodnom privatnom pravu, Sl. list CG 1/2014 as amended) gives Montenegrin courts exclusive jurisdiction in proceedings concerning a real right in immovable property located in Montenegro. A judgment from the owner's home court will not do the job, and a forum clause in a family agreement or a lease cannot move the ownership dispute elsewhere. Owners abroad normally act through a lawyer holding a power of attorney; see powers of attorney for Montenegrin property.
Before you file
Four things decide how the case goes, and all of them can be settled before a claim is drafted.
- Fix the register position. Obtain a current extract and confirm that you, not the deceased or the seller, are the registered owner. If you are not, that is the first proceeding, not the second.
- Date the possession. Establish when the occupier entered and on what footing — tenant, caretaker, relative, stranger. The date drives both the possessory deadline under Article 404 and any održaj period under Articles 53 and 54.
- Collect evidence of the occupier's knowledge. Correspondence, a terminated lease, a refused handover — anything that shows the occupier knew the property was not theirs. It decides the good-faith columns in the accounts and closes the održaj door.
- List what the occupier will claim. Renovations, tax paid, utilities settled. Under Articles 115 to 118 these can become a counter-claim and a right to keep the property; better to know the figure before the hearing than at it.
If you own property in Montenegro and someone is holding it without your consent, send us the register extract, the documents showing how they came to be there, and the dates you know. We act as legal counsel on the ownership file and, where the register itself needs correcting, on the cadastre proceedings; our real estate practice covers the rest of the property side. We will tell you which of the routes above fits the facts before anything is filed.
This note states Montenegrin law as read on 25 September 2026 from the texts identified in the legal basis below. It is general information about legislation, not advice on any particular property or dispute.
