Project Financing and Real Estate Projects

A new service provided by the banks in Serbia in the field of construction, project financing represents a type of funding projects of building residential and business facilities intended exclusively for future sale. We assist the investors in finding locations, providing opinions on the legal status thereof, establishing contacts with banks; we participate in negotiations with banks aimed at obtaining the most favourable credit terms, in preparation for sale, registration of facilities, and in preparation of documentation needed for closing sales. The Office also advises the banks during project financing and participates in preparation of project-related contracts. Specific nature of this type of financing is reflected in the bank requirement that the holder of construction be a business entity founded especially for this purpose, a so-called SPV business entity; as a result, we enable our clients to found such an entity and thus fulfil this requirement in the quickest, most efficient, and legally safest manner. Lack of organized legislation on real estate, limitations on disposal of city construction land, and unresolved legal anomalies (such as the “protected tenant” institute) all lead the potential investors to extreme caution in the procedure of selecting real estate to finance.

The role of the Office is hence to clarify all legal ambiguities that may arise during project realization, as well as to warn against risks of purchase of individual properties.
The investment in the field of real estate is now often linked to the corporative organisation of the companies and tax issues. The forming and monitoring of the complete scope of works of the investment consortiums formed for the big projects represents a specific challenge.
Over the previous period, the office provided legal opinions on behalf of its clients, or provided advice on numerous attractive locations in Serbia:
Legal advisement on the project of construction of the largest commercial centre in Serbia, located in Novi Sad. The Investor is IMMOEAST Austria, in cooperation with American construction companies;
Placement of funds into the big hotel chains in Montenegro;
Legal advisor on the project of construction of a residentially-business complex in Dorcol. The construction space is located in downtown Belgrade, covering an area of over 55,000 m² of residential and business units;

Legal advisor to the London company Carlton Invest on various construction projects in Belgrade;
Purchase of the logistic centre in Dobanovici;
The construction of assembly (prefabricated) factories in Šimanovici;
Legal advisor to ERSTE Bank in Belgrade and in Vienna in the field of project financing;
Legal opinion on the project Kalemegdan plaza, involving Hypo-Alpe-Adria-Bank and ERSTE Bank Belgrade. This project comprised construction of residential buildings in the most central part of Belgrade;
Participation in the project Lungo Mare, the largest in Montenegro, comprising creation of an exclusive tourist centre in the southern Adriatic by taking 60ha of useful sea area and 40ha of coastal land for construction of hotels and apartment complexes.

 
e-mail: realestate@kosiclaw.co.rs