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Where the State's Pre-emption Right Applies and Where It Does Not

The Czech Republic has a pre-emption right to unbuilt land located outside the built-up areas of municipalities within national parks, national nature reserves, national natural monuments, and to land associated with caves (Section 61 of the Act on Nature and Landscape Protection under Czech legislation). In the event of an intended sale, owners of such land must offer it for purchase with priority to the nature conservation authority, even if it only partially falls within the protected area.

For an investor, this results in three filters that are worth going through before starting to negotiate the price. The first is the territory: the pre-emption right applies only to the listed categories, not to every protected area. Protected landscape areas, nature parks, or Natura 2000 sites are not among them. The second is the state of the land: built-up land is not subject to the pre-emption right. The third is the location relative to the built-up area of the municipality, which is determined by spatial planning documentation, not by how the locality actually looks. Therefore, it is sufficient for just one of the filters not to be met, and the state's pre-emption right under Czech legislation does not apply to the land.

The term "unbuilt land" is broader than it seems at first glance. The Supreme Court has concluded that land must generally be considered unbuilt if it is not affected by any structure in the civil law sense, including structures located underground. In one of the cases assessed, a water reservoir occupied only a small part of the land; nevertheless, the court considered the land as a whole to be built-up, and therefore the state's pre-emption right to it did not arise.

At the same time, the court rejected the idea that the pre-emption right could be applied only to the unbuilt part of a single plot (judgment of the Supreme Court, file no. 22 Cdo 833/2023 of 17 December 2024, available at rozhodnuti.nsoud.cz). For a set of plots, this means that the obligation to offer does not disappear just because the protected locality makes up only a fraction of their area.

The state's statutory pre-emption right under the Act on Nature Protection is in practice the most significant restriction that investors in land and forests in protected areas encounter. However, this does not mean that other restrictions do not exist. Pre-emption rights and other transfer restrictions can also arise from other regulations or from contracts of previous owners, which is why it is always necessary to review the land registry extract and find out what encumbrances actually lie on the land.

Watch out for land that only marginally extends into a protected area. The law explicitly states that the obligation to offer applies in such cases as well. However, the pre-emption right is tied to a specific plot of land, not automatically to the entire set of plots that are the subject of a single transaction. If you are buying a larger area in which only one plot partially lies in a national natural monument, it is therefore necessary to determine which specific plots are affected by the obligation to offer and structure the entire transaction accordingly; otherwise, you risk losing a part of the whole on which your entire project depends.

How It Works: Offer, Sixty Days, and Registration in the Land Registry

The Ministry of the Environment submits a proposal for the registration of the pre-emption right in the Land Registry based on a certificate listing the affected plots of land. If the nature conservation authority does not express written interest in the offered land within sixty days of receiving the offer, the owners may proceed with the intended sale. If it does express interest, the Nature Conservation Agency or the national park administration concludes the contract on behalf of the state.

According to both the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Court, the general rules of pre-emption rights apply subsidiarily to the state's statutory pre-emption right. The seller's obligation to offer the property to the pre-emptor for purchase matures upon the conclusion of a contract with the prospective buyer (Section 2143 of the Civil Code). In practice, this means that a contract is first concluded with you, and only then is the land offered to the state under the conditions you agreed upon with the seller.

For the buyer, this sequence has two consequences. First, your purchase agreement must explicitly anticipate the offer to the state: when the seller will send the offer, how they will prove its delivery, and what happens if the state expresses interest. Second, the conditions you negotiate are also the conditions under which the state can buy the land. Unusual advantages for the buyer that the state cannot fulfill may lead to a dispute over whether the offer was proper.

For sets of land plots where the pre-emption right affects only some parcels, it is advisable to determine the price of each of them separately. This facilitates the factual definition of the state's offer and prevents disputes over how much of the total price is allocated to the affected parcel. Without separate valuation, the court can calculate the price according to case law, but this certainly does not end the dispute.

How exactly to incorporate the offer and the deadline into the contract depends on how large a part of the whole is affected by the pre-emption right and whether it is a single plot or a set — which is why the Prague-based Czech legal team at ARROWS law firm always sets up this mechanism according to the specific plots, not based on a template contract.

What Happens If the Seller Does Not Offer the Land to the State

This is where the greatest risk for the buyer lies. If a pre-emption right is established as an in rem right, it entitles the pre-emptor to demand from the successor of the other party, who acquired the property by purchase, that they transfer the property to them for the appropriate consideration (Section 2144 of the Civil Code). The Supreme Court has repeatedly confirmed the pre-emption right under the Act on Nature Protection as a statutory in rem pre-emption right, most recently this summer.

Thus, the state will not only go after the seller who omitted the offer. It will turn to you and demand that you transfer the land to it. This is exactly how the Šumava National Park Administration proceeded in the dispute discussed below: it sued the buyer to substitute the declaration of intent to transfer the land for the price at which they bought it. The judgment, file no. 22 Cdo 956/2026 of 29 July 2026, is available at rozhodnuti.nsoud.cz.

The second rule that worsens the buyer's position is the rule on awareness. If the prospective buyer knew about the pre-emption right or must have known about it, the contract is deemed to be concluded with a condition subsequent of the exercise of the pre-emption right (Section 2145 of the Civil Code).

Furthermore, in the case of a statutory in rem right, the general protection of good faith in the land registry registration does not apply at all, regardless of whether the right is registered. In the cited judgment 22 Cdo 956/2026, the Supreme Court concluded that the ministry's failure to register the pre-emption right has no effect on its existence and that the mere location of the land in a national park establishes a reason to doubt whether the land is not encumbered by a special regime.

For the buyer, this means that checking whether the seller has properly made the offer to the state is in their own interest, not a mere formality of the seller. Without a documented offer and the expiration of the sixty-day period, you are buying the land with an open risk of losing it. No one will reimburse you for the investments in project documentation, surveys, and opinions that you incur in the meantime upon transfer for the purchase price.

Furthermore, the pre-emption right does not end with your purchase. If the pre-emptor does not buy the offered property, their pre-emption right remains preserved; thus, the fact that the state did not express interest in the land once does not mean that the land is free forever. When you sell the land yourself, for example, after completing the project or upon investment exit, you will have to offer it to the state again. This period must also be taken into account in the divestment plan and in negotiations with a future buyer, who will verify it themselves.

Buildable Area: Where the Law Changed and What the Dispute Was About

The most instructive is the dispute over the land of a defunct village in Šumava. The buyer bought them from owners who had not previously offered them to the state, and invested in archaeological research, documentation, and opinions for the construction of family houses. The national park administration then sued him for the transfer of the land for the purchase price. At that time, the pre-emption right was not registered in the land registry, and the sellers were not warned about it even in the land consolidation process through which they acquired the land.

At the same time, the concerned authorities expressed a positive opinion on the buyer's plan, and the management of the park administration had no objections even to the inclusion of the land in the buildable area in the spatial plan. The dispute thus did not arise due to nature protection on site, but due to whether the pre-emption right existed at all. The Supreme Court dismissed the lawsuit. It concluded that the term "settlement unit", on which the then wording of the law based the pre-emption right, corresponds to a continuously built-up area of a municipality with adjacent development areas, and that it also includes buildable areas intended for development in the valid spatial plan; the land lay in such an area, and therefore the state's pre-emption right did not apply to it (judgment of the Supreme Court, file no. 22 Cdo 1691/2018 of 28 November 2019, available at rozhodnuti.nsoud.cz).

For today's investors, however, another sentence of the same judgment is more significant. The dispute was governed by the wording of the law until 31 May 2017. Since 1 June 2017, instead of "settlement units", the law uses the term "built-up areas of municipalities", and the court explicitly stated that the old concept is not identical to this new one. Built-up area and buildable area are two different concepts in construction law.

From the text of today's law, it therefore follows that unbuilt land that the spatial plan has only recently designated for development, but which lies outside the built-up area of the municipality, may not fall under the exception to the pre-emption right. The argument that secured success for the buyer in the Šumava dispute would hardly stand today. Since then, the Supreme Court has returned to the interpretation of Section 61 in several other decisions, including the aforementioned judgment from this summer, and merely confirmed the conclusion regarding the in rem nature of the pre-emption right and the strict interpretation of exceptions.

Whether a specific plot of land lies in a built-up area or only in a buildable area is verified in the valid spatial plan, and for development projects, the entire investment depends on this — which is why this check is performed by the Czech legal team at ARROWS law firm before signing, not after. The connections between agricultural land and spatial planning are discussed in the text on agricultural land and spatial planning.

How to Structure the Transaction So That the Pre-emption Right Does Not Catch You by Surprise

The first step is due diligence on the land. In addition to the land registry extract, you need to know which category of protected area the land belongs to, whether it is built-up in the civil law sense, i.e., including any underground structure, and whether it lies within the built-up area of the municipality according to spatial planning documentation. For sets of land plots, the check is done for each parcel separately, as the pre-emption right may apply only to some of them.

The second step is a purchase agreement with an offer mechanism. The contract should specify that the seller will offer the land to the state under the agreed conditions after its conclusion, within what period they will do so, and how they will prove the delivery of the offer. The registration in the land registry and the payment of the purchase price are then tied to the expiration of the sixty-day period without any expressed interest, or to a written statement from the authority that it has no interest in the land.

The third step is the allocation of risk in case the state expresses interest. The contract should state what happens to the deposit, who bears the costs incurred up to that point, and how to proceed with a set of plots where the state expresses interest in only a part. For larger investment projects, it is advisable to tie financing to this condition as well, so that you do not incur an obligation to finance land that you ultimately do not buy.

The fourth step is the timing of investments, because the deadline for the state determines when the reservation of land becomes actual ownership. Do not spend money on documentation and opinions before the deadline for the state expires. If you must start earlier due to time constraints, agree with the seller on who will bear these costs if the state expresses interest, and secure them with a deposit or retention money. What a comprehensive legal due diligence of land before investment looks like is discussed in the text on legal due diligence of land for development.

Investor Errors That Cost Both Land and Money

The most common mistake is relying on the seller. The investor assumes that the seller will handle the offer to the state, as it is their obligation, and does not check it themselves. If the seller omits it, the risk falls on the buyer, because the state will turn to them. Therefore, proof of delivery of the offer and the expiration of the period are among the conditions for signing, not among the matters resolved after registration.

The second mistake is confusing protected areas. Investors often assume that the state's pre-emption right applies in every protected area, or conversely, in none. However, the law provides an exact list, and the category of the area in which the land lies is decisive, not the general awareness that the locality is protected.

The third mistake is relying on older case law. Decisions issued under the wording of the law until May 2017, which also considered the municipality's development areas as an exception, cannot be used automatically today. Anyone who relies on them may buy buildable land with a pre-emption right they did not anticipate. How older decisions affect a specific plot of land depends on when the spatial plan was issued and how the land is registered in the land registry — which is why the scope of case law is verified for each transaction individually by the Czech legal team at ARROWS law firm.

The fourth mistake is investing before the end of the period. Project documentation, surveys, and opinions of the concerned authorities often cost more than the land itself. If the state exercises its pre-emption right, the buyer will not acquire the land, and the state does not automatically reimburse the costs incurred up to that point for their project; the method of settling the purchase price or deposit then depends on how the escrow was set up in the contract. How to avoid other mistakes when buying land is shown in the text on the most common legal mistakes of developers in land acquisition.

Final Summary

The article has shown that the state's pre-emption right to unbuilt land under the Act on Nature Protection applies only to designated protected areas, but there it is harsh for the buyer: it is in rem, exists regardless of the land registry registration, and the state can demand the transfer directly from them. The category of the area, the state of the land, and its location relative to the built-up area of the municipality are decisive.

For company management, two pieces of information and one date are crucial. The first piece of information is the category of the protected area in which the land lies. The second is their location according to spatial planning documentation, because today's exception applies to built-up areas, not buildable areas. The date is the end of the sixty-day period for the state, before which it makes no sense to invest in the project.

Delaying the check is costly here. Buyers who lost land or had to litigate over it usually invested before they knew whether the state would express interest, relying on the assumption that an empty entry in the land registry meant zero risk. Those who managed the purchase successfully had the state's offer documented before they submitted the proposal for registration, and postponed project investments until after the end of the period.

The Czech legal team at ARROWS law firm will verify the land and its location in the protected area and the spatial plan, prepare a purchase agreement with a state offer mechanism, monitor the deadlines, and represent you in a dispute if the state exercises its pre-emption right. Write to us at consultation@arws.cz or review our real estate law service.