Kosovo Fines Gazivode Cottage Owners After Demolition

Four owners of vacation homes removed from the left bank of Lake Gazivode have received misdemeanor rulings fining them 2,000 euros each for what the documents describe as illegal construction. The notices from the Kosovo Ministry of Environment, Spatial Planning and Infrastructure in Pristina were delivered by mail on July 28, seven days after workers from the public company Ibar-Lepenac, assisted by Kosovo police, demolished their structures in the Zubin Potok municipality.

The fine is cut in half if paid within a month, which puts the discount deadline at the end of August. Instead of paying, the owners appealed. Two days after receiving the notice, on July 30, they filed appeals with the competent appeals commission, asking that the rulings be annulled entirely and the case sent back to the first instance body for a new decision.

The ruling is dated the day the bulldozers arrived

The disputed ruling is filed under number 26-INSP-14-TGJ-61, serial number 23/2026, and dated July 21, 2026. That was the day Ibar-Lepenac workers began removing 11 vacation homes on the lake’s left bank, with three more structures sealed off two days later. The document that opened the misdemeanor case and the machinery that tore the buildings down carry the same date, yet the owners did not see the paperwork until a week afterward.

The rulings have so far been delivered to four owners in person. The rest were mailed to the addresses of structures that no longer exist. Lawyer Dragutin Nenezic, who represents some of the owners in proceedings launched after the demolition, confirmed that these are indeed owners of the vacation homes removed in the July 21 operation.

What the appeals say

The first objection concerns language. The ruling and the accompanying letter were drafted exclusively in Albanian, as was the 2,000 euro payment slip, which lists construction without a permit and encroachment on public water land as the offense. One owner wrote in the appeal:

The contested decision I received is written in Albanian, a language I do not speak, so I do not understand at all what kind of decision this is.

The appellants cite the Law on the Use of Languages, number 02/L-37, under which administrative proceedings must be conducted in a language the party understands. The ruling was mailed to an address in a municipality where Serbian is an official language.

Why does the missing seal matter?

The second objection is procedural. The owners say the ruling carries a signature but not the seal of the official who issued it, and a seal, in their reading of the rules, is a mandatory element of an administrative act. If the appeals commission accepts that argument, the ruling falls without the case ever reaching the question of whether the structure was built legally, and the matter goes back to square one. The commission has not yet ruled on the four appeals.

Five organizations demand the demolitions stop

On the same day the fines were confirmed as delivered, five nongovernmental organizations from northern Kosovo, InTER, the New Social Initiative, AKTIV, CASA and ACDC, called for a halt to the removal of structures by the lake. In a joint statement, they asked the institutions to publish:

• all demolition decisions
• inspection records
• the legal basis for the police assistance
• proof that owners were given access to legal remedies

Their central objection concerns a document the owners say they never received.

In not a single case was an owner served a decision by the competent authority ordering demolition. Owners only received notices from the public company Ibar-Lepenac.

The organizations also said police assistance cannot substitute for the missing act.

It is particularly concerning that police are providing assistance during the demolitions even though owners were never served rulings from the competent authorities.

This is the second joint statement from the same organizations in less than a month. In late July they asked the Basic Prosecution in Mitrovica, the Kosovo Police Inspectorate and the Kosovo Interior Ministry to examine the legality of the demolitions by the lake, suspecting that some institutions had exceeded their authority. The action was not halted afterward.

A hearing on August 12, with fines running before it

The removal of structures at Gazivode, carried out by the company headed by director Faruk Mujka, began in late June in the Cecevo settlement, continued on July 21 with the 11 vacation homes, and on July 30 claimed the Jezero hotel on the opposite shore. We wrote earlier about how the case reached the European Parliament, and acting Environment Minister Fitore Pacoli said after the hotel demolition that 17 structures had been removed from the area and that the operation would continue without compromise.

The nongovernmental organizations point out that the hotel was demolished despite a hearing before the Basic Court in Mitrovica scheduled for August 12.

Demolition before the conclusion of court proceedings can render judicial protection pointless.

Until that date, two separate proceedings stand side by side: a judicial one, over the legality of the removal itself, and an administrative one, over the fines issued afterward. The deadline for the 2,000 euro fine to be cut in half runs out before either of them is resolved.