Serbia's Parliament has adopted a new Real Estate Brokerage Agencies Act (Zakon o posredovanju u prometu i zakupu nepokretnosti), which was published in the Official Gazette of the Republic of Serbia No. 095/2013 on 31 October 2013 and entered into force as of 8 November 2013 ("Act").
The Act regulates the conditions and manners of providing real estate brokerage agency services, as well as oversight of its implementation.
The Act prescribes that a broker may provide his or her real estate brokerage services only after he or she has received a decision of registration with the Register of Real Estate Brokers ("Register") from the Ministry of Foreign and Internal Trade and Telecommunications. It is important to mention that it is punishable by law to offer these kinds of services without first being registered.
The Act sets out the requirements that must be fulfilled in order to be entered in the Register, as well as the requirement of passing the compulsory expert exam for the provision of real estate brokerage services. A broker may be deleted from the list of registered brokers if he or she no longer fulfills the relevant conditions for registration at any time, or upon his or her request.
In addition, the Act determines the form of the brokerage agreement that must be concluded between the broker and his or her clients, as well as the terms it must contain.
Finally, the Act contains penal provisions describing the circumstances in which both legal and natural persons may be held liable for conducting real estate brokerage activities contrary to the Act.
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