The trend towards ESG issues has increased markedly on the Slovakian commercial real estate market. More and more Slovak companies are behaving responsibly and sustainably – under pressure from tenants, employees, contractors, customers, regulators, and investors who involve ESG in their decision-making.

Energy prices have been a salient issue in CEE for the past year. Part 1 of this article covered just how high the energy prices had climbed in Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Moldova, Montenegro, Poland, and Turkey, the impact of those prices on people, businesses, and governments, as well as the reasons why some countries fared better than others. Then Russia’s war against Ukraine changed everything, making a new energy pricing normal seem more distant than ever. In Part 2 we look at what energy experts believe could alleviate the situation and whether the war has impacted those plans.

Montenegro is a small mountainous country located in Southeastern Europe, on the Balkan Peninsula, with a coastline on the Adriatic Sea, and with a specific real estate market that offers something for everyone’s pocket.

Since 2009 the Republic of Serbia has undergone major legislative changes aiming to simplify the process for issuing construction permits and to establish private ownership over land as an exclusive property right, replacing the permanent use right and the long-term lease, which are relics of the communist regime. Depending on the circumstances pertinent to the holder of the title, the conversion of the permanent land use and long-term lease rights into private ownership may be performed either free of charge or for a fee.

Had we been writing this piece mid-February, our description of the Polish real estate market would have been consistent with the trends encompassing the past two years: despite the pandemic, two sectors continue to boom – logistics and residential, including the still relatively new professional rented sector, with many big players moving into Poland over the past few months.

In most countries, the energy consumption of buildings reaches very high levels, making their energy efficiency potential high. Buildings play an important role in energy efficiency and make a significant contribution to combating climate change and energy consumption. Therefore, it is important to align the process, from the buildings’ design to their final completion and exploitation, with the pertinent green standards.

The latest trend in M&A advisory, in Croatia and the region, is to offer to both sellers and buyers of CEE targets a special type of M&A insurance policy – a Warranty Insurance Policy (WIP).

The COVID-19 pandemic undoubtedly hit the real estate market. In response, the government adopted a series of measures that included an extraordinary moratorium, often used by commercial tenants, and a rent reduction scheme in which the government subsidized the rent in cases where the landlord was willing to provide a discount. Most importantly, the crisis made the government abolish the 4% real estate transfer tax.