January 2025 – On 5 January 2025, the Real Estate Register in the Slovak Republic (the “Register”) was subject to a ransomware cyberattack.
The Register is the sole register containing information on ownership, third-party rights (easements, pledges, etc.) and other material information on immovable properties in Slovakia. As a result of the cyberattack, all the Register’s services are unavailable, and all Real Estate Register Offices are closed until further notice.
In practice, the following services, among others, are unavailable:
- it is not possible to obtain title deeds, either in electronic or in hard-copy form; and
- all ongoing proceedings concerning immovable properties (sale, pledge, etc.) are suspended, and it is not possible to file new applications.
The disruption of this crucial information system is a material issue for natural persons and businesses through all areas and situations, from acquiring loans, transfers of immovable property ownership or imposing correct Real Estate tax to construction, enforcement and bankruptcy proceedings, or even inheritance proceedings. The unavailability of services may impact real estate, M&A as well as banking & finance transactions, in particular if the submission of a title deed or filling application for the registration of data with the Register is agreed to be a condition precedent or subsequent to closing, a condition for a purchase price release, or for the utilisation of facilities or mortgages. In addition, there is a risk of transaction abortions due to expiration of long-stop dates.
Debt recovery and litigation may also be affected, as creditors will not be able to check the debtor's immovable property, create or enforce pledges over debtor’s immovable property, or, in essence, to carry out any acts that require registration in the Register (such as a preliminary injunction that restricts the debtor from disposing of assets, a note of pending proceedings, etc.).
The outage may also affect permitting processes, as the building authorities are not able to verify data in the Register, for example, to verify the identity of potential participants of the building proceeding.
Since all proceedings concerning immovable property are currently suspended, we believe the room for fraudulent actions is limited, as the acquisition of a property right (ownership, pledge or easement) takes effect only upon its registration in the Register.
In our opinion, the cyberattack can be considered as a Vis Major in contractual relations, and thus liability for damages in case of a breach of contractual obligations caused by the cyberattack is very likely to be limited. However, long-stop dates or deadlines are not automatically extended under law due to this Vis Major situation. Therefore, we recommend to review your contractual arrangements regarding the extension of deadlines agreed in your contracts.
The Register is subject to stringent cybersecurity rules, both relating to personal data as well as to the continuity of operation of critical services. As such, the investigation and handling of the incident must follow the applicable cybersecurity rules and best practices. We understand that significant effort is being undertaken in order to re-instate the availability of the datasets. Given that information as to the exfiltration of personal data is not yet publicly available, the impact on privacy and personal data protection rights (beyond the breach of availability) remains to be seen.
Currently there is no official information on the end of the outage, the scope of the ransomware attack or its aftermath, nor whether all data from the Register will be recovered. As the scope of the outage and its potential future consequences are not clear at the moment, we will continue to monitor the situation. Once the outage is resolved, we recommend to review your extracts from the Register to check if all your property rights remained the same, in particular:
- if you are properly registered as owner or co-owner;
- if your property is properly identified (all land plots, their size, type of land, etc.);
- if all easements and pledges are properly shown in the Register;
- if all notes regarding ongoing court proceedings or injunctions over immovable assets are properly shown in the Register; and
- in case a long-term lease is registered with the Register, double check the proper lease registration.
In the meantime, we recommend to collect all relevant documents you possess concerning your property rights, such as purchase agreements, pledge or easement agreements or former title deeds so that you have all supporting documentation to check the data as soon as possible. If you made your filling electronically, make a back-up version of these fillings, including all annexes.
Data kept by the Register is considered up-to-date and correct unless proven otherwise. Having said that, in case your property rights are not properly recovered by the Register following the cyberattack, we believe a combination of the following solutions will be available:
- court action claiming your property rights;
- application to the Register to correct the incorrect data (in case of minor errors such as typos, etc).
We also expect the government to establish a specific regime to address the inaccuracies identified following the Register recovery.
We note that ownership right is not subject to a statute of limitations, and thus you may be able to file successful court action claiming your ownership later in time.
Lastly, the entire situation may lead to monetary damages, for example if transactions are aborted or postponed, as well as to non-monetary damages, for example personal data breaches. In such cases, the court action for compensation of damages against the state may be considered as an ultimate solution. However, it is questionable to what extent such claims would be accepted by Slovak courts. With the exception of consumer disputes, class actions are not recognised under Slovak law, and individual court actions would be the only possibility.
Click on the image below or use the following link to read our overview in Slovak.
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If you have any questions or inquiries, please feel free to contact us.