Minding a Montenegrin Flat from Abroad, Notice Board to Key-Holder

Every organised apartment building in Montenegro has a notice board in the stairwell, the oglasna tabla. Most of what gets pinned to it is noise: a lift-service sticker, a printout about the bins. Once a year, one sheet of paper is supposed to be there by law: the annual report of the upravnik, the building manager, listing the works done on the building, what each cost, and the balance of the building's joint account.

If you own a flat in Bečići or Dobrota and spend fifty weeks a year somewhere else, that sheet is the nearest thing you have to a set of accounts. Ask your key-holder to photograph it. If there is nothing to photograph, that is the first finding.

Four parties have a claim on an absent owner's attention: the building, the flat, the people you let it to, and the municipality. The building comes first, because you cannot dismiss it.

What the upravnik controls, and what your monthly advance buys

The upravnik is elected by the assembly of unit owners, the skupština etažnih vlasnika, and under the Law on the Maintenance of Residential Buildings can be a fellow owner, an outside individual or a company. The manager opens the building's joint account and, in the words of Article 18, disposes of the maintenance funds. RoNa Legal's 8 September 2026 note on what the law lets the upravnik do with the building's money sets out the articles one by one.

The reporting duties are what protect an owner who is not there: a written report to the assembly within 30 days of larger works, and the annual report for the notice board, with every owner entitled to inspect the paperwork behind it. A building that has never held an assembly does not stay ungoverned: the municipality must appoint a temporary manager for up to three months, who has 15 days to call the founding session.

Then the money. The monthly advance is a statutory contribution, not a negotiable fee. Article 16 sets it at one point per square metre of net residential area, and the assembly fixes the value of a point at no less than €0.20. A 60 m² flat therefore pays at least €12 a month, and more in a newer building with a lift and a pool, because the assembly can vote the point higher. Two clauses matter more abroad than at home: an unpaid maintenance invoice is an enforceable instrument, so the building can start enforcement without first suing you, and when you sell you cannot ask for your share of the account back. RoNa's companion piece on how building charges are calculated and enforced quotes both clauses. If you pay from abroad, get the account number from the manager in writing and keep the transfer confirmations.

The flat: damp, the bojler, the stopcock and the person with the key

The building's problems arrive by letter. The flat's arrive by smell. A coastal flat shut from October to May grows mould on the north wall and behind the wardrobe; heating here means the air-conditioner in heat mode, and nobody is there to run it. Damp becomes a legal matter only when it travels through the wall into the neighbour's flat.

The wall-mounted electric water heater, the bojler, is the other winter risk. Left on for months it scales up and can weep at the seams, and a split washing-machine hose will empty the mains into the flat below. The plumber's advice is dull and correct: close the stopcock and the bojler valve before you leave, and have someone air the flat every few weeks. Glatko's May 2026 survey of plumber and electrician rates in Montenegro puts a call-out at about €25, often waived if the work goes ahead, and an emergency visit at €40 to €70 an hour.

Damage that threatens the building does not have to wait for a vote: Article 13 lets a unit owner carry out urgent works, a burst pipe or roof damage for instance, and recover the cost under Article 17(3), provided the manager is told without delay.

None of this works without a person on the ground, a neighbour, a relative or a cleaner you found by posting a request for a cleaner or handyman on Glatko. They should leave your flat with more than a key:

• a signed note, in Montenegrin and English, saying they may enter and call tradespeople on your behalf, with your phone and passport numbers
• the manager's name and number, and the building's account number
• photographs showing the stopcock, the bojler valve and the fuse box
• the EPCG customer number and the water customer code from the last bills
• spare shutter keys and the alarm code
• a cash float, or an agreement on how an emergency call-out is reimbursed

That note is not a power of attorney: a key-holder can let a plumber in but cannot sign anything with the building, the municipality or a bank in your name. For that you need a punomoćje, and one signed before a notary abroad is accepted in Montenegro once it carries an apostille. RoNa Legal's Budva office handles representation in Montenegro under an apostilled power of attorney alongside building and title disputes.

Letting it: fifteen days to tell the building, twelve hours to register a guest

The moment the flat earns money, two clocks start. The first belongs to the building. Article 23 requires a landlord to give the manager written notice within 15 days of the lease starting, naming the tenant, the landlord, the area let and the term; the manager passes this to the municipality every quarter, so a tenant on nobody's list is a visible gap. An air-conditioning unit on the façade or a glazed balcony also needs municipal approval under Article 25. The fifteen-day notice rule for landlords is set out, with the selling-side duty, in RoNa's 8 September 2026 note.

The second clock belongs to the state. A foreign guest has to be registered with the local tourist organisation or the police within 12 hours of arrival and deregistered within 24 hours of departure. The Interior Ministry's page for foreigners puts that duty on the accommodation provider, and on the guest only where there is no provider.

Short-term letting has its own licence. A foreign owner holding a list nepokretnosti, the cadastre extract, may let as an individual, up to seven bedrooms or fifteen beds, once the municipal Secretariat for Tourism has categorised the flat: title extract, use permit or an electrical safety certificate, a fee of around €30 to €35, an inspection within 15 days. Coastal municipalities charge a tourist tax of €1.00 per adult per night in 2026. Fines stack: unlicensed letting €200 to €2,000, an unregistered guest €150 to €500, a tourist-tax breach the same again. Those figures are from RoNa's 2026 guide to short-term rental licensing.

The inspector, the €0.20 floor and the thirty-day rule

The supervisor an owner meets is the inspektor za stanovanje, the housing inspector, whose Article 33 checklist covers assembly notice periods, lift servicing and whether the manager arranged urgent works without delay; once a breach is established, Article 35 obliges the inspector to issue an order. The fines in Articles 37 and 38 run from €500 to €10,000 for a legal-person owner, an assembly president or a user, and from €30 to €2,000 for a natural person. RoNa's note on who the housing inspector can fine, and for how much is the fuller table.

Neither number is new: paragraf.me's bulletin reporting the new building law on 23 August 2019 already carried the €0.20 floor and the €500 to €10,000 bracket for buildings whose owners never organise management.

If your right to be in Montenegro rests on the flat, absence has a legal price. The property-based residence permit, which since 17 January 2026 requires a transfer-tax assessment of at least €150,000, is written for people who live here. RoNa's 19 August 2026 reading of the Foreigners Act quotes Article 65:

The permit "ceases to be valid if, during the residence, the foreigner stays outside Montenegro for more than thirty days."

An owner who visits a few weeks a year does not need that permit and should not hold it. Owning the flat gives no entry right on its own, and from 1 November 2026 citizens of Türkiye, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia and Belarus will need a visa to come and check on it.

For what a checklist cannot settle, the notice that was never sent, the tenant who stopped paying, the works you dispute, RoNa Legal is a law firm working in Montenegrin and Turkish law from offices in Budva and İzmit, set up by lawyers registered with the Kocaeli Bar.

What an empty flat in Budva costs to keep in 2026

The table prices a 60 m² flat in Budva with nobody in it, from documents that could be read in September 2026.

Water is the cleanest figure. Vodovod Budva's 2026 price list, issued with the regulator REGAGEN's consent of 28 July 2025, charges a fixed €2.4759 a month for water and €0.3065 for sewage per customer before any consumption, plus 7 per cent VAT: about €36 a year for a flat with the meter on and nobody home. The decision is a PDF on the utility's price-list page.

Electricity is not in the table: EPCG's tariff page renders only in a browser and no 2026 standing charge could be read from it, so check the current sheet on epcg.com before you budget. Insurance is not priced either; it is not compulsory for a private owner, and premiums are quoted per policy.

Two lines to send before the first storm

The first big south-westerly of autumn usually arrives before the building has thought about its gutters. Send your key-holder these two lines now, not when the forecast turns.

Line one: "Please go in this week, close the stopcock under the kitchen sink and the valve on the bojler, check that the terrace drain is clear and the shutters are latched, and send me a photo of each room."

Line two: "On your way out, photograph whatever is pinned on the notice board and the reading on the water meter, and text me the manager's number if it has changed."