Usufruct Agreement

Usufruct agreement – professional template in Word format

An agreement creating a right of usufruct is used where an owner wants to give another person the right to use a property and to collect its fruits while remaining the owner. The most common situation is a parent who passes a property to the children but keeps the right to live in it and use it for the rest of their life, as well as cases where a flat is given for use with the option of letting it out.

Usufruct is a personal servitude governed by the Ownership and Other Real Rights Act (Zakon o vlasništvu i drugim stvarnim pravima). Unlike real servitudes, it is tied to a person and not to a property, so it is not inherited. The right arises only on registration in the land register – signing the agreement on its own is not enough.

Key features

• Professional template – 8 articles drawn up in line with the provisions on personal servitudes, with a built-in clausula intabulandi (registration consent).
• Practical reliability – costs are clearly split between those borne by the usufructuary and those borne by the owner, which is the most common source of later disputes.
• Easy to adapt – you choose the lifetime variant or a term in years, creation with or without consideration, and who pays the insurance.
• Digital delivery – the DOCX file with instructions for completion and registration arrives by e-mail immediately after purchase.

What the template includes

• Details of the owner and the usufructuary and a description of the property – court and land registry department, land registry folio, cadastral municipality, cadastral parcel number, area and address
• Creation of a personal servitude of usufruct over the whole property
• Choice of duration – for the lifetime of the usufructuary, or for a fixed term running from the date of entry in the land register
• Choice between creation without consideration and creation for consideration, either a lump sum or monthly
• Content of the right – possession, use in accordance with the purpose of the property and collection of the fruits, including rent from a lease or tenancy, without impairing the substance
• Obligations of the usufructuary – regular maintenance, running repairs, utilities, the municipal charge and ordinary public dues
• Obligations of the owner – extraordinary repairs to the substance (roof, structure, common installations) and extraordinary public dues
• The owner’s clausula intabulandi (registration consent) for registration of the usufruct
• Termination of the right – death of the usufructuary or expiry of the term, and waiver by a deletion consent (brisovno očitovanje) with a certified signature
• Return of possession of the property, allowing for ordinary wear and tear

Who this template is for

• Parents who pass a property to their children but want to keep the right to use it for the rest of their life.
• Owners of flats who give someone the right of use with the possibility of collecting the rent.
• Families settling matters in advance, so that there are no later arguments about who is allowed to do what.
• Usufructuaries for whom it matters that the right is registered and therefore protected against future owners.

Important. If parents gift a property to their children while reserving a usufruct, the usufruct clause is as a rule built directly into the gift agreement, and this standalone agreement is then not used.

Copy the land registry details from a current title deed (land registry extract). If you are transferring the property to your children while reserving the use of it, see our real estate gift agreement template, and if the idea is that someone cares for you in exchange for the property, a lifetime support agreement is more suitable.