Croatian Reserve Fund (Pričuva): Who Pays and How It Is Run

In Croatia all co-owners pay the reserve fund (pričuva) in proportion to their co-ownership shares, charged on the value area of their units or on the share entered in the land register. It is paid monthly, into a separate reserve-fund account of the building. The Croatian reserve fund is one common pot: it pays for maintenance, emergency and necessary repairs, building insurance, common-parts electricity, loan repayments and court costs, and also the fee of the manager and of the co-owners' representative.

The rules are in the Law on the Management and Maintenance of Buildings (NN 152/2024), which has applied since 1 January 2025.

Who pays and what it is charged on

All co-owners bear the contributions to the common reserve fund in proportion to their co-ownership shares, unless otherwise agreed. The fund is charged on the value area of the separate parts of the building and their appurtenances, or on the share of co-ownership entered in the land register.

The inter-owner agreement may set that commercial units used for business, units used for short-term letting and/or for letting to a larger number of persons pay a reserve-fund rate twice as high as flat owners. That does not apply to commercial units with a separate entrance from a publicly accessible area.

What the fund pays for

The money is used to carry out the annual maintenance program for the common parts and the multi-year maintenance and management program, in particular for:

• regular maintenance, emergency and necessary repairs and improvements,
• insurance of the building,
• the fee of the building manager and the fee of the co-owners' representative (who the co-owners' representative is),
• cleaning and maintenance tools and small consumables,
• common electricity costs,
• repayment of a loan taken to finance regular maintenance,
• administrative and court proceedings and lawyers' fees.

Insuring the common parts against fire, storm, lightning and escape of water from water and sewage pipes, and against third-party liability, is a duty of the community of co-owners, discharged through the manager.

How much: the co-owners' decision and the statutory minimum

Who decides. The level of the reserve fund is a decision on the management of the building, carried by a majority of more than half of the co-owners, like the annual and multi-year maintenance programs. The manager delivers the proposed annual program to the co-owners' representative by 15 November and the multi-year program by 31 December. Investment maintenance (art. 27) needs a qualified majority, more than 80% of the co-ownership shares. To raise the reserve fund for necessary repairs under art. 26(2), the consent of co-owners with more than one third of the shares is enough.

The statutory minimum. The minimum common reserve fund per square meter of a flat's value area per year is 0.54% of the reference construction price published by the Ministry, which is published in the Narodne novine. The annual program may not set a monthly amount below one twelfth of that figure. The exact euro amount depends on the current publication of the reference price, so check it there.

If no program is adopted. If the annual maintenance program is not adopted, the co-owners must pay five times the amount of the last adopted reserve fund, which cannot be lower than the statutory minimum. That is a strong reason to adopt the program on time.

The account and how it is run

• A special account. Co-owners must pay the reserve fund monthly into a special common reserve-fund account, in the amount set by the annual or multi-year program.
• An account per building. The manager must open and run a separate account or special-purpose account for every building and keep each community's business apart from its own accounts and the other accounts it manages.
• The community's property. The community of co-owners' property is the money deposited on the account into which the reserve fund is paid. After the community is formed, the rights and obligations arising from the reserve fund pass from the individual co-owners to the community.
• Protection in bankruptcy. In bankruptcy or enforcement against the manager, the money on the building's account is not part of the bankruptcy estate and enforcement cannot be carried out against it.
• Reporting. By February the manager draws up the annual report for the past year, which must contain an item-by-item overview of the reserve fund's income and expenditure, and within 15 days of a co-owner's request it makes the documents behind the report available.

If a co-owner does not pay

The manager must allocate and collect the reserve-fund costs and, for due but unpaid instalments, notify the co-owners' representative and, where needed, take further steps towards enforcement.

Default interest accrues automatically, with no clause needed in any contract: the European Central Bank reference rate plus three percentage points ("in other relations", art. 29(2) of the Obligations Act, ZOO). The rate changes every six months. The manager's invoice is itself an enforcement instrument: enforcement is proposed on the invoice, without a prior judgment, and the debtor receives a payment order with an eight-day deadline. That only works if the invoice is built correctly: it must name the creditor and the debtor and state the subject, type, extent and time of the money obligation, and an invoice to a private individual must carry the statutory warning that non-payment can lead to enforcement.

How Unitify works here

• Charging. Unitify applies the charge rule you set for the building: per square meter, per apartment, per resident or a flat amount. For the reserve fund set a per-m² rule and enter the value area of the units If your building charges by the co-ownership shares entered in the land register, enter each unit's amount as a fixed per-unit charge calculated from its share (a manual setup). You determine the amount for the building yourself, according to the co-owners' decision and the statutory minimum.
• Invoices and arrears. Invoices go out automatically, and payments and balances are tracked per unit, so each unit's position is at hand when a correct invoice has to be issued or enforcement started.
• Payments. Unitify processes payments through Stripe, which supports Croatia. HUB 3A, KEKS Pay and other Croatian payment methods are not Unitify integrations.
• What Unitify does not do. It does not open or run the building's separate account. That is the manager's duty with the bank.

See the Croatia page and pricing. To see how this would work for your buildings, book a demo.