A landlord’s lien is the pledge that section 672 of the Slovak Civil Code gives the landlord of immovable property, by operation of law, over movable things located on the leased property to secure the rent. Nobody negotiates it and nobody pays for it. It also catches only things that belong to the tenant, which in a logistics warehouse is usually the smallest part of what is inside.
What a landlord’s lien is under Slovak law
Section 672(1) of the Civil Code, Act 40/1964 Zb., states it in one sentence: to secure the rent, the landlord of immovable property has a pledge over movable things which are on the leased property and belong to the tenant or to persons living with the tenant in a common household, with the exception of things excluded from enforcement.
Three features separate this from every other security in a lease. It arises from the statute rather than from agreement, so it exists whether or not the lease mentions it and whether or not the parties ever discussed it. It secures the rent, which is a narrower claim than the full set of tenant obligations that a bank guarantee or a rent deposit is usually drafted to cover. And it attaches to things rather than to a person, so its value moves with whatever happens to be standing in the unit.
Section 151b(1) confirms that a pledge can be created by law as well as by written contract, by an approved agreement between heirs, or by a decision of a court or administrative body. The landlord’s lien is the lease example of that category, and it is the reason a Slovak landlord already holds a form of security on day one, before any instrument is issued.
The limit that decides everything: the goods must belong to the tenant
The words in section 672(1) are patria najomcovi, meaning belong to the tenant. In an industrial building that qualification does most of the work, and it usually works against the landlord.
Walk through a typical unit. The stock on the racking in a third party logistics operation belongs to the operator’s customers, not to the operator. The racking itself is frequently leased or financed and retained under a reservation of title. The forklifts are on operating leases. Automated handling equipment is often financed by the supplier. Consignment stock belongs to the supplier by definition, and goods held under a customs or excise arrangement are subject to their own regime.
What is left that the tenant genuinely owns can be modest: office fit-out, spare parts, packaging materials, sometimes finished goods in a manufacturing tenant’s own warehouse. A lien over a hall storing 25,000 pallet positions of somebody else’s freight is worth what the tenant’s own property in it is worth, and no more. The statutory exception for things excluded from enforcement narrows it further, although that list matters far more for a natural person than for a corporate occupier.
The practical consequence for a landlord underwriting a letting to a logistics operator is straightforward. Treat the lien as a bonus that may be worth nothing, and take the security you actually intend to rely on in the form of an instrument.
How the lien survives, and the eight days that decide it
Section 672(2) is the operating manual, and it is unusually specific. The pledge extinguishes if the things are removed before they have been listed by a person authorised by the court, unless they were removed on an official order and the landlord reports its rights to the court within eight days of the removal.
The same subsection gives the landlord a self-help remedy and immediately puts a fuse on it. If the tenant is moving out, or things are being removed while the rent is unpaid or unsecured, the landlord may retain the things at its own risk. Within eight days it must then apply for a listing by a person authorised by the court, or it must release the things. The statute adds that the person authorised by the court may also be a judicial enforcement officer.
Read those two sentences together and the design becomes clear. The security is not perfected in a register and it is not perfected by the lease. It is perfected by an inventory taken while the goods are still on site, and everything before that inventory is a race. The phrase at its own risk is not decoration either: goods retained that turn out to belong to a customer of the tenant expose the landlord to a claim from their owner, and that owner has no contract with the landlord and no reason to be patient.
Why a landlord’s lien is not a substitute for an instrument
Set the statutory lien next to the two instruments a lease actually negotiates. A bank guarantee pays cash on a written demand, is an obligation of a bank rather than of the tenant, and costs the tenant an annual commission. A rent deposit is money already held, and its weakness appears only when the tenant fails and set-off becomes an argument. The lien costs nothing, is never negotiated, and delivers goods rather than money.
Goods are the problem. Converting a pledge over movables into cash means enforcement, and enforcement means time, a valuation and a market for whatever the tenant owned. The realisable value of used racking, part-finished stock or a five year old fit-out is a fraction of its book value, and it arrives long after the quarter’s rent was due.
Scale it against a real unit. At the prime industrial rent of EUR 5.30 per square metre per month reported for the second quarter of 2026, a 10,000 square metre hall costs EUR 53,000 a month before the service charge, so a quarter’s arrears is around EUR 159,000. A landlord that has to find that sum in the tenant’s own movables, having first proved which of the things in the hall are the tenant’s, is in a different position from one holding a guarantee. That is our own arithmetic on the published rent, not a quoted case.
What happens when the tenant fails, or the building is sold
Two events test the lien, and it behaves differently in each.
The first is insolvency. From the declaration of bankruptcy, section 48 of the Slovak insolvency act, Act 7/2005 Z. z., stays individual enforcement against the estate, so a landlord that has not already secured an inventory is joining a process rather than running one. A pledge that attached and survived is a secured position within that process; a pledge over goods that were removed the week before is nothing at all. The difference is decided in the days around the tenant leaving, not in the insolvency itself.
The second is a sale of the building. Under section 680(2) the acquirer enters the legal position of the landlord, so the statutory lien follows the letting rather than the seller. A buyer therefore inherits the lien on the same terms, including the fact that nobody has ever taken an inventory of what is in the unit and that nobody knows which of it the tenant owns.
Both events point at the same practical habit. The lien is worth what a landlord can identify and reach on the day it matters, so an asset schedule agreed with the tenant at handover, kept current at each rent review, is the cheapest way to make a statutory right into a usable one.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the lease have to mention the landlord’s lien for it to exist?
No. It arises from section 672(1) of the Civil Code by operation of law, so it applies to a Slovak lease of immovable property whether or not the document refers to it. What the lease usefully adds is procedure rather than entitlement: a right of access, an obligation on the tenant to notify before removing equipment, and an agreed schedule of what in the unit belongs to the tenant.
Does it cover goods belonging to the tenant’s customers?
No. Section 672(1) limits the pledge to things that belong to the tenant or to persons living with the tenant in a common household. Customer stock in a third party logistics warehouse, equipment held under a reservation of title, leased forklifts and consignment goods all fall outside it. This is the single most important limit on the right and the reason it is weak in exactly the sector where the halls are largest.
Can the landlord simply keep the goods until the rent is paid?
Only briefly and at its own risk. Section 672(2) permits retention where the tenant is moving out or removing things while the rent is unpaid or unsecured, but the landlord must then apply within eight days for a listing by a person authorised by the court, or release the things. Retaining property that turns out to belong to somebody else is the risk the statute is referring to.
Does the lien have to be registered anywhere?
The statute does not point the landlord at a register. Section 151e(1) makes registration in the Notarial Central Register of Pledges the default requirement for the creation of a pledge unless the Civil Code or a special act provides otherwise, while section 672(2) makes the survival of this particular pledge depend on the goods staying put and on a court-ordered inventory. How those two provisions interact for a statutory lien is a point to put to Slovak counsel before relying on it; in practice the lien is worth what the inventory catches.
What happens to the lien if the building is sold?
It follows the letting. Section 680(2) puts the acquirer into the legal position of the landlord on a change of ownership, and the pledge secures the rent under that lease rather than a claim personal to the seller. A buyer should still ask what the tenant actually owns in the unit, because nothing about the lien is recorded anywhere a purchaser can search. What else changes hands on that day, from the tenant’s statutory right to terminate to the twenty year VAT adjustment period, is set out in our post on buying a tenanted warehouse in Slovakia.