Property Rights & Disputes in Latvia

Property rights in Latvia are what the Land Register (Zemesgrāmata) records for each property, and most property disputes come back to that record. This page is about property rights and disputes in Latvia and the work of a property lawyer in real estate disputes: boundaries between plots, rights of way and other servitudes (servitūts), entries that do not match reality, and divided ownership (dalītais īpašums), where a building and the land under it belong to different owners and the relationship is a compulsory lease (piespiedu nomas attiecības). Some older lists and lawyer pages call this service “Property Rights, Obligations & Disputes”.

Who uses it

Foreign owners of a country house or a flat, heirs who find old or unclear records, buyers who discover a problem after the property purchase, and landowners in a dispute with a neighbour.

Typical disputes in Latvia

• Boundaries: the cadastre of the State Land Service, the survey plan and the use on the ground do not always agree; a new survey is often the first step.
• Servitudes: access roads across a neighbour's plot, cables and pipes. A servitude can come from an agreement, a court decision or the law itself, and is entered in the Land Register.
• Land under a building: owners of flats in many older blocks pay the landowner for the use of the land, and disputes concern the payment and its terms. The rules on ending divided ownership have been revised more than once; a lawyer confirms the current position.
• Register entries: a wrong owner, a mortgage that was paid off but not deleted, an annotation that should have been removed.

What a lawyer does

The lawyer orders the Land Register and cadastre extracts, reads the older documents behind them, writes to the other side, negotiates an agreement such as a servitude agreement and brings a claim to court when needed, acting for owners abroad under a power of attorney. A dispute among co-owners of the same property has its own page, co-ownership disputes and termination, and so does a dispute with a tenant: landlord and tenant disputes.

Questions and answers

Does a foreign owner have the same property rights as a Latvian one?

Once registered in the Land Register, yes: the owner may use, let, sell or mortgage the property. The restrictions on foreigners concern mainly who may buy rural and forest land.

A neighbour drives across my plot. Is that a servitude?

Only if one has been agreed, decided by a court or arises from the law; the Land Register and the documents show which. A lawyer checks before either side acts.

What is divided ownership?

A situation left by land reform and privatisation: the building or the flat belongs to one owner, the land to another, and the building owner pays for the use of the land.

How is a wrong Land Register entry corrected?

Depending on the error, by an application with the right documents or by a court decision; a lawyer sees which applies.