Legal Framework of Agricultural Land/Holding Succession and Acquisition in Slovenia

Abstract

Agricultural land legislation in Slovenia contains extensive special provisions that directly regulate the legal transfer of agricultural land and holdings inter vivos and mortis causa, including inheritance. Additionally, some measures within the common agricultural policy (such as financial support for the takeover of farms by young farmers) and tax policies (exemptions) provide incentives or alleviations for certain legal transactions involving the transfer of agricultural land and holdings. Among special provisions on the transfer of agricultural land and holdings, those relating to a statutory preemption right and a statutory priority right to lease agricultural land have the longest continuity (from the late 1950s). The holders of these priority rights must meet certain requirements and range in several priority classes. At first, agricultural organisations as legal persons had better priority rights than farmers. In 1990, the priority order was reversed by placing individual farmers before legal persons, individual agricultural entrepreneurs, and the National Agricultural Land and Forest Fund (NALFF). In 1973, the agricultural land legislation prohibited the division of certain middle-sized family farms (protected farms) through inheritance (mortis causa) and later (1986), also inter vivos, (with certain exceptions). The Agricultural Land Act and the Forests Act also restrict the division of certain agricultural or forest land plots. The draft acts of 2019 and 2020 prepared by the Ministry of Agriculture foresee important changes of the agricultural land policy, including the priority order between the statutory preemption rights and the removal of a general restriction on the division of protected farms inter vivos.