The Property Law Implementation ratio at the end of August 2003 reached 88 percent. In Brcko District, 96 percent of all property claims have been resolved, while in the Republika Srpska (RS) and in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH), the implementation rate now stands at 88 per cent.
Out of 224,000 claimed properties in Bosnia and Herzegovina, almost 197,000 have been positively resolved to date resulting in the pre-war owners or occupancy right holders successfully repossessing their properties.
In total, 46 municipalities have substantially completed their property repossession process. The fact that many of these 46 municipalities do not have a 100 percent Property Law implementation rate results from the fact that negative decisions are not counted as closed cases. These 46 municipalities are now verifying that Property Law Implementation has been completed following all the legal provisions outlined in the PLIP Substantial Completion guidelines.
For the first time in August 2003, the percentage of cases closed when compared to the number of claims made under the Property Laws in the RS has reached that of the FBiH. The implementation of the property laws started eight months earlier in the Federation of BiH than in the Republika Srpska.
The agencies monitoring the implementation of property laws throughout BiH call upon all municipalities who have not yet completed the PLIP process to redouble their efforts during the remainder of 2003 in order to substantially complete the process by end December.