This is the smallest item on the closing checklist and one of the most common to detonate afterwards. The purchase completes, the keys change hands, and a few weeks later there is a demand for water going back three years, or the electricity is cut off, or the municipality sends a communal charge for a period before you existed as far as this property is concerned.
The useful question is not "does debt follow the property" — that phrase is too loose to answer. Montenegrin law charges different things to different people. Some obligations are owed by whoever owns the property. Others are owed by whoever signed the supply contract. And the enforcement mechanisms attach to different targets again.
This page separates the three, with the statutory basis for each, and then sets out what belongs in the contract. It deals only with utilities and communal charges; the building's own maintenance contributions are a separate regime, covered in common areas, management and costs.
Sources used: Zakon o komunalnim djelatnostima (Law on Communal Activities), the text used here being Official Gazette of Montenegro nos. 055/16 and 074/16 — later amending layers exist and should be confirmed; Zakon o energetici (Energy Law), Official Gazette of Montenegro nos. 5/2016, 51/2017, 82/2020, 29/2022 (Constitutional Court decision) and 152/2022; Zakon o porezu na nepokretnosti (Law on Real Estate Tax), base text Official Gazette of the Republic of Montenegro no. 65/2001, later amended.
Category one: charges owed because you own the property
The clearest case is the komunalna naknada, the communal fee.
Article 58 of the Law on Communal Activities provides that where individual charging of communal services is not carried out, common communal consumption and the maintenance of the equipment needed for those activities is financed from this fee. It is revenue of the local self-government budget, not a payment to a service company.
Paragraph 3 answers the question this page exists for. The communal fee is paid by the owners of residential space, business space, garage space, and ancillary or temporary structures. Not by residents, not by users, not by whoever signed something — by owners.
It is charged per unit of area in square metres, its level is set by reference to the zone in which the property lies and the property's purpose, the price per unit may not differ between obligors, and the conditions, manner, deadlines and procedure of payment are prescribed by the municipality with the Government's prior consent. That is why the amount differs between Budva and Berane, and why the answer to "what will it be" is a municipal decision rather than a national figure.
The second owner-based charge is real estate tax. Under the Law on Real Estate Tax the taxpayer is the person, natural or legal, who is the owner of the property on 1 January of the year for which the tax is determined. Where several persons hold the property in co-ownership or joint ownership each is a taxpayer in proportion to their share, and co-owners are jointly and severally liable for payment. Where the owner is unknown or undetermined, the user is the taxpayer.
The 1 January rule has a precise consequence for a purchase. If you complete in June, the taxpayer for that whole year is the person who owned the property on 1 January — the seller. You become the taxpayer from the following 1 January. That is a rule about who owes the year, and it is worth writing the apportionment into the contract rather than assuming the parties share the intuition.
Category two: charges owed because you use the service
Individually charged communal services — water supply, wastewater, waste collection where it is measured or otherwise individually determined — work differently, and the definition is the thing to read.
Article 3 defines the user of a communal service as a natural or legal person who has residence or stays in the area of the local self-government unit, or the owner of the property (residential, business and/or production space), who uses the communal services.
That definition matters because it reaches the owner directly. A service provider identifying who to bill for a given property is not confined to whoever last signed a form; the statutory category includes the owner of the premises. In practice this is why water and waste accounts tend to follow the property in the provider's records even when the person changes, and why providers ask a new owner to regularise the account before continuing service.
None of that is the same as saying the seller's accrued arrears become your debt by operation of law. It means the provider has a statutory category that includes you as owner going forward, and an account history attached to the premises. Those two facts are enough to create real friction at the counter, which is why the contract has to deal with it.
Category three: charges owed because you signed a contract
Electricity and gas sit in a different statute and a different logic.
Article 191 of the Energy Law frames the obligation as that of the end customer under the contract or the invoice for delivered energy. Where the customer does not perform, the supplier must first issue a warning giving a period not shorter than eight days from delivery of the warning to settle the due obligations or reach an agreement on performance. Only then does the supplier ask the system operator to limit or, if that is not technically possible, suspend supply.
Two protections sit alongside that, and both are worth knowing.
The operator must carry out the limitation or suspension within the period set in the request, and it may not begin on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday, on a public holiday or on the day before a holiday. And under Article 198, suspension is prohibited altogether for one protected category of customers, and for socially vulnerable customers from the beginning of October to the end of April, regardless of any unpaid obligations for consumed energy.
The other side of the same coin is Article 221, which treats as unauthorised consumption — among other things — self-connection after supply has been suspended for unauthorised consumption or non-payment, and use of energy after the supply contract has been terminated. Where the operator establishes unauthorised use it must suspend supply without prior warning. Reconnecting the meter yourself because the previous owner left a debt is therefore not a shortcut; it is a separate and worse problem.
The practical position for a buyer is this: the energy debt is contractual and belongs to the customer who incurred it, but what gets switched off is the supply to the premises. You do not inherit the debt as an obligation; you inherit the disconnected flat.
| Charge | Who owes it, by statute | What that means at completion |
|---|---|---|
| Komunalna naknada | Owners of residential, business, garage and ancillary space (Art. 58) | Owner-based and per m²; municipal rules set the amount and deadlines |
| Real estate tax | Owner registered on 1 January of that year | Seller owes the purchase year; apportion in the contract |
| Water, wastewater, waste | The user, defined to include the owner of the property (Art. 3) | Account attaches to the premises in practice; regularise before completion |
| Electricity and gas | The end customer under the contract or invoice (Art. 191) | Debt is personal, but supply to the premises is what gets suspended |
| Building maintenance contributions | Separate regime, see the linked page | Local authority decision is an enforcement title against the named owner |
What "the connection is cut" actually tells you
A disconnected meter is a fact worth interrogating rather than accepting.
It may mean an unpaid account and a suspension under Article 191, which is a money problem with a known cure. It may mean the supply contract was terminated, in which case continued use would fall under Article 221. Or it may mean the property was never lawfully connected at all — which is not a billing question but a construction and permitting question, and a far more expensive one.
The three look identical from the doorway. Ask which it is, and ask for the document that proves it.
What to put in the contract
Because the statutory picture is mixed, the protection is contractual and documentary. In practice the items that earn their place are these.
Obtain written statements of account from each provider and from the municipality, dated as close to completion as possible, and name them in the contract as documents the seller must deliver. Agree an express apportionment of the real estate tax for the year of completion, given the 1 January rule. Take meter readings on the day, recorded and signed by both parties, so the boundary between the seller's consumption and yours is a fact rather than an argument. Where any balance is unresolved, hold a retention from the price rather than accepting an assurance, and specify what releases it.
Add a warranty from the seller that there are no arrears on any utility or communal account relating to the property, with an indemnity, and make transfer of the accounts into your name a completion obligation rather than an afterthought. If the seller cannot produce a clean statement from a provider, that is information about the file, and it is better to have it before the deposit than after.
The deposit is the point of leverage here, and how it is characterised decides what happens if the deal fails on this issue. We set that out in what your deposit actually does.
Before completion
Send the statements, the draft contract and the folio through the contact page, or look through the services directory. Related reading: the property purchase process and legal due diligence for investors.
A note on sources. The communal activities text relied on here runs to Official Gazette no. 074/16 and later amending layers exist, and the real estate tax law has been amended since its 2001 base text. The obligor definitions cited are the durable part of both regimes, but confirm the current chain before relying on a specific provision. This page is general information and not advice on a specific transaction, and it states no rates or amounts, which are set municipally.
