The Annual Report of the Ministry of Justice shows that the number of outstanding land registry cases in 22 municipal courts in Croatia rose by 6% compared to 2016, or by an astounding 37.4% compared to 2015. In 2015, the number of unsolved cases was 32,551, whereas at the end of 2017 it was 44,709. Last year has also seen an increase in unsolved special cases, by 24.1%, or almost 6,000.
The Report claims that the main reason for this increase is the rise in new cases, and increased activity related to reconstruction and establishment of new land registries.
The worst increase was recorded in Zagreb Land Registry, a total increase of 2,096 cases in 2017, followed by Dalmatia: 970 cases more in Makarska, 903 more in Supetar (Brač Island), 885 more in Sinj, and 720 more in Zadar. A positive example was the Municipal Court in Novi Zagreb, which reduced its caseload by half.
The Zagreb Land Registry increase was due in part to reorganization, which resulted in allocation of a certain number of employees to the new Land Registry Department in Granešina Municipality.
The siguation seems to be worse in Split, where in 2017 the number of records issued to customers went down by 10.31%, while the number of registered cases dropped by 0.51%, and the number of resolved cases went down by 2.72%. At the same time, the total number of outstanding cases grew by 24.97%.
The average time needed for a regular case also increased, from 23 days in 2016 to 24 days in 2017. So the Ministry decided to allocate overtime and issue recommendations to those offices with 1,000 or more outstanding cases, and will monitor the situation in 2018.