Dozens of Slovenian owners of illegally build holiday homes in Istria, Croatia, are being urged to file a class-action lawsuit against Croatia due to perceived irregularities in the demolition proceedings.
The appeal comes after an association which brings together some 70 owners of properties in the Marcan municipality in Croatia held a meeting on Tuesday at which it wrote a petition that is to be addressed to the Croatian Environment Ministry.
A similar petition was addressed to the Croatian ministry in March, but the ministry replied last week that demolition will proceed shortly as planned.
According to the association, Croatia started drafting new zoning legislation in 2002 and Slovenian owners of illegally built property thought that they would be able to legalise the buildings.
Indeed, they claim they even started registering their property at the land registry and paying real estate tax, but when the law was passed in 2004 their presumptions turned out to be wrong.
Since then almost 270 owners of holiday properties have received demolition orders and most buildings have already been demolished by the owners themselves in order to avoid paying for demolition.
The association believes that there were many irregularities in the proceedings which warrant court action. If they do not succeed in Croatia, they say they will take their case to the European Court of Human Rights.
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