Historically foreigners could not buy a real estate on their name in Czech Republic. The only way was to open a company in Czech Republic and to buy a real estate on its name. This has been changed. Now any foreigner can buy property in the Czech Republic. There are no legal restrictions on foreigners owning property in the country.
Can a foreigner indeed buy a real estate in Czech republic without any limitation?
Although there are no official restrictions for foreigners when purchasing real estate in the Czech Republic, any foreigner may encounter refusal from the seller to sell them property. We will not consider individual cases where a private individual chooses or does not choose a particular buyer for personal reasons. Typically, the restriction that a foreigner may encounter will relate to purchasing property from a developer. Sometimes developer sets quotas to whom they will sell apartments in their project. In my practice, there have been cases where a developer stated that they could not sell any apartment to my foreign client because the quotas for selling apartments to foreigners in a specific project were exhausted. Developers explain this by attempting to limit the number of investment apartments in the project, i.e. apartments purchased for rental purposes. According to Czech law, any building with more than five apartments must establish a homeowners’ association that will be responsible for building management. And if there are too many apartments in the building where the owners do not reside themselves, the management of such a building will be ineffective.
Why else might a foreigner fail to purchase a real estate?
Another very important note to make here is that currently anyone who is buying a property in Czech Republic should prove where the money for this purchase comes from. Hence be ready to provide all the necessary documents that would clearly show source of the funds. Citizens of certain countries with no residency in Czech Republic will be checked more thoroughly. Anyone who fails to prove the source of the funds for a purchase will be rejected by a real estate agent, a lawyer or a bank holding the money for transaction.
If you have questions on how to purchase a real estate in Prague or nearby, feel free to contact me.
Alexandra Kurbanova – real estate agent in Prague and suburbs.
Connect with me (Whatsapp, Viber): +420 606 171 876