UNMIK/PR/92
PRISTINA—The Special Representative of the Secretary-General Bernard Kouchner, has signed a regulation (number 1999/23) establishing a Housing and Property Directorate and Housing and Property Claims Commission.
This is the first step in the process of resolving the complex issue of contested residential property ownership, which will be guided by UNMIK and the UN Centre for Human Settlements (HABITAT).
An appeal for funds to meet the anticipated operating costs of the Directorate --- estimated at US $2.8 million per year – will be made at the Second Donors Conference on Kosovo in Brussels today.
Regularizing housing and property rights is a fundamental part of UNMIK’s goal of establishing a functioning democratic society, and housing is one of the most complicated and sensitive issues facing Kosovo today.
The Housing and Property Directorate, to be staffed and managed by HABITAT, will provide overall direction on property rights in Kosovo, until the SRSG determines that local governmental institutions can take over.
The Directorate will conduct an inventory of abandoned private, state and socially-owned housing. It will supervise the utilization or rental of abandoned property on a temporary basis for humanitarian purposes.
Some 120,000 houses were destroyed or damaged during the recent conflict.
The Directorate will also receive claims concerning residential property disputes and will either mediate the disputes or refer them to the Housing and Property Claims Commission for resolution. The Commission, an independent and impartial organ of the Directorate, will initially be composed of a panel of two international and one local experts in housing and property law.
By early next year, claims collection and mediation offices of the Directorate will be established in all regions of Kosovo and in parts of Serbia.
The three main categories of claimants include people who lost property as a result of discriminatory legislation; people who entered informal contracts since 1989 and want to have them regularized; and people who lost property as a result of the recent armed conflict.
The Commission will have exclusive jurisdiction to settle these categories of claims, and its final decisions will be binding.
