Purchase contract

After you have decided to buy a house in the Czech Republic and made all the necessary inspections, the next step is signing a preliminary purchase contract. Along with it you pay a deposit of 10% – 30% of the total price.

If you need a mortgage but don’t yet know if you will get one, this should explicitly be a cancellation condition in the preliminary purchase contract. If any problems occur you can pull out of the contract. If one of the specified cancellation conditions occurs or if you have to cancel due to legal problems, you are entitled to get your deposit back. However if you simply don’t want to buy any more your deposit will be lost.

Seek legal advice

It is very important to be careful when signing any legally binding contract. Sometimes the naming of contracts can be confusing and you might be tricked into signing a preliminary contract instead of a reservation contract. Always have the contract checked by your lawyer before signing.

When all parties are ready to proceed, the final contract of sale is signed. By this time the remaining price of the property is paid and if you have used an agency their fees will have to be paid now as well.

After signing the contract, you need to register at the Cadastral Register which will guarantee all the rights you have as owner. There is no standard computerized system for property in the Czech Republic. So, it might take up to a couple of months to get the registration done.

It should be noticed that all contracts should be in accordance with the Czech Law, thus every single signature or the purchase/collateral contracts must be verified. This implies that the role of lawyers in the purchase process is something that cannot be avoided.