This inequality still blights the entire Western Balkans region, but Kosovo is particularly affected. It isn’t just for cultural reasons. Historical, political and other factors affect every country in the Western Balkans, but Kosovo draws all these threads together, creating a perfect storm.
Only around one-fifth of properties in Kosovo are registered or co-registered in women’s names. This is among the lowest percentages in the region.
When women are denied their property rights, they don’t have the collateral to start their own businesses. They aren’t able to leave abusive situations or secure their own economic independence. This holds back economic progress as a whole in the region by essentially denying a large percentage of the population the ability and means to be independent citizens.
A Shared Problem Across the Region
Many of the same issues that drive Kosovo’s low female ownership rate also contribute to low ownership rates in other Western Balkan countries.
Families traditionally leave property to sons. Other factors include informal or illegal construction, wars that displaced people or forced them to flee their homes, the deaths of property owners and properties remaining registered in the names of deceased owners.
The following chart shows the comparative ownership rates in Western Balkan countries. Albania’s rates were not available. Even though national definitions differ, Kosovo comes out at the bottom of the table.
Women across the region face similar barriers to land ownership, including son preference, conflict, displacement, informal construction and outdated registration systems, but these factors do not affect every country uniformly.
In Serbia, 44% of women—particularly in rural areas—renounce their own inheritance in favour of males, compared to only 0.5% of men who do the same.
While Bosnia and Herzegovina has around 37% female ownership, many household properties are still registered to the husband, especially in rural areas. There are also documented patterns of inheritance renunciation.
In Albania, data gaps remain a serious problem. The Albanian Institute for Statistics (INSTAT) has published few statistics (namely that Albanian women own 11% of agricultural land) statistics regarding women’s land ownership, and neither has the Cadastre office. Without this data, it is impossible to understand the extent of the issue and whether policy changes have worked.
By 2025, 91% of Albania’s land had been registered, but approximately 80% of previously registered property data had still not been verified for accuracy. As of 2025, only 43% of ownership titles, 69% of supporting documents and 10% of cadastral maps have been digitised.
Albania aims to complete digitisation by December 2026 and first-time property registration by December 2028, according to the EU’s most recent progress report for 2025.
Between 2013 and 2023, the proportion of women’s property records in North Macedonia rose from 16.63% to 29%. The country instituted several administrative changes that its own Cadastre office says helped bring about the change. These included a new law that enabled the modernisation of property registration, increased notarial cooperation and the digitisation of maps. The Cadastre office also launched its own research into the issue and increased public awareness.
In Montenegro, despite the high percentage for the region, inequality still looms large. Women own 36% of residential properties. However, that represents only 25% of the country’s total registered real-estate area. Twenty-five per cent of women property owners are sole owners, compared with 59% of men. Forty per cent of acquired property by purchase, and 36% own it through inheritance.
Roma, Ashkali and Egyptian women face additional barriers arising from the marginalisation of their communities, as well as marginalisation within their own communities. Language, education and a lack of resources hamper their ability to fight for their rights. In Kosovo, this problem is even more acute, exacerbated by the educational and social segregation these communities experience—an established practice that continues today.
In Kosovo, the situation is also complicated by the removal of many cadastral records to Serbia. More than four million records have been scanned and indexed but have not yet been given to Kosovo because of a dispute over the implementation of the cadastral agreement and composition of the Kosovo Property Comparison and Verification Agency commission.This must be resolved through the normalisation process with Serbia.
What Is Being Done About It?
Kosovo already has the appropriate legislation. Now, it is about enforcement, good governance and the necessary structural changes. As the report Barriers to Equitable Participation in the System of Property Rights Governance in Kosovo, published by NGO ATRC’s PIAKOS project, noted, solutions must be both structural and cultural.
When someone dies, their death must immediately trigger action across several systems, including notaries, the civil registry and the judiciary.This should inform the authorities who the deceased person’s relatives are. If women are forced, deceived or coerced into signing over their rights, they should be informed of those rights and given a cooling-off period to reconsider their decisions, according to the report.
These procedures—which are in place or are being proposed in Montenegro, Serbia, Croatia, North Macedonia and Slovenia—are aimed at helping to stop women from being concealed or excluded from their legal share.
Fraudulent declarations of family composition, the concealment of heirs and the improper registration of marital property must be investigated and treated as criminal offences rather than excused as cultural issues.
Enforcement of the law is key to protecting women’s rights. Completing the digitisation and interlinking of systems will help resolve many of these issues, along with proper data collection to enable the analysis of policy measures.
Governments also need to enforce laws against coercion and deception and inform all their citizens of their rights and responsibilities in accessible languages.
But there also needs to be a change in cultures to acknowledge that women deserve their place in the family and their fair share of property and land.
This article is supported through the PIAKOS project, financed by the World Bank-administered State and Peacebuilding Fund. The project works with women and vulnerable communities to improve access to property information, counselling and registration services.
Supported by: Advocacy Training & Resource Center-ATRC
*All data in this article were retrieved from national and international sources including the European Union, United Nations, OSCE, cadastral and property-registration authorities. Differences in definitions, reporting timeframes and methodologies may affect direct country comparisons.
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