Slovakia Land and Property

Europe Slovakia  Land and Property

Feudal Land Lease Records [Urbaria]
Research use: These records can enhance the effective use of church records. They establish residence, ages, and relationships which are valuable for pedigree links.

Record type: A register of leaseholders and their feudal obligations. Obligations could be satisfied in labor, in kind, or in money.

Time period: Some may exist as early as 1750; most cover the 1780s and 1790s.

Contents: Lists of peasants with land rights, occasionally including family members, with amount of obligations of the peasant toward the estate owner. May include age and relationship to previous leaseholder.

Location: Slovak state regional archives, Slovak district archives, Hungarian state archives.

Population coverage: About 20%.

Reliability: Very reliable.

Modern Land Records
According the Act of the National Council of the Slovak Republic No. 180/1995 Z.z. adopted in 1995, the Slovak government was required to recover the national land register in Slovakia until 1st September 2005.

In May 2005 the General Prosecutor asked the Constitutional Court, if the Act is consistent with the Slovak Constitution (His opinion was, that the rights of the landowners are breached by that law). The Constitutional Court suspended the implementation of the law. It means, that the possibility to claim is still open.

In order to facilitate the identification of the owners of the abandoned land (aka "unclaimed land" or "land of undetermined owners") the Slovak government launched a free search portal "Zoznam nezistených vlastníkov" (A list of unknown land owners). In July 2005 the English version was also launched. Unfortunately, in Autumn 2007 the operation of this portal was stopped. This portal was replaced by the free online Slovak plot register called Katastrálny portál. This database includes the present land ownership data of all land in Slovakia.

Following the directions above will connect you to this page where you can search for your ancestor's property