In a nutshell:

It is not necessary to follow the view that it is necessary to offer your co-ownership share for purchase to the other co-owners when selling the property.

The only exception is in the case of inheritance, where the offer is mandatory, but only within the first 6 months of the co-ownership.

If the need arises to deal with pre-emption, it is advisable to use experts to avoid litigation.

Inheritance as the only exception

Although there is no longer a statutory pre-emption right for co-owners in Czech law, many people still have the opinion that it is an obligation to offer their co-ownership share for purchase to the other co-owners when selling. Today, however, as a co-owner I have the right to dispose of my share freely, for example to sell, donate or exchange it, without having to give priority to the other co-owners when transferring the share.

In practice, the statutory pre-emption right of co-owners is not very relevant and need not concern you. Exceptions are rare cases where you may encounter it.

Right of pre-emption for land

You can very often encounter the use of the statutory pre-emption right when selling a building built on land that is not yours or when selling land on which someone else's building stands. In these cases, the owner of the building and the land are obliged to offer the other party the first option to buy. The regulation aims to achieve unification of ownership of the building and the land and to fulfil the principle of superficies solo cedit, which the new Civil Code has reintroduced into our legal system. Due to historical reasons, we still encounter a different ownership structure for buildings and land, such as garden colonies or terraced garages built under the previous regime.

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Preemption in practice - what to look out for?

In practice, the pre-emption right manifests itself in such a way that if you are going to sell a property and someone else has a pre-emption right on this property, you must first conclude a purchase agreement with the buyer, i.e. with the one who would like to buy the property. Only then must you offer the pre-emption right to the person who has it. If the person with the right of first refusal decides to buy the property, it must be offered to them on the same terms as to the purchaser. That is, at the same price, with the same time for payment of the purchase price, the same method of security, the same liability claims and other terms agreed with the purchaser. The new Civil Code brought this procedure as an innovation compared to the previous regulation.

Thus, the new Civil Code stipulates that the person with the pre-emption right is not obliged to offer the property for sale before concluding a contract with a specific interested party. But the correct timing of the offer is not the only condition. The full and proper execution of the offer is crucial to avoid potential legal disputes. If you want to avoid costly and time-consuming litigation, you should consider enlisting the help of professionals to ensure a safe sale of the property with all the terms of the pre-emption agreement.