Opening in Diaspora Offices in Local City Halls
This sounds promising, emphasis on SOUNDS! As of right now it's all talk. I have been trying to register my uncle Nikoll Gjomarkaj's legal succession from New York for 6 months. He escaped the concentration camp at Turan in 1949 and lived the rest of his live, until his death in 2018, in the USA. His heirs filed a legal succession in New York per the law and sent it here to be registered in the ZRPP (Office of Private Property) in Shkodra. The paperwork arrived with all the required signatures and Apostille and I had it translated and notarized per the regulation in Albania. The request was denied on the basis that "a foreign legal succession cannot be filed", going against the Albanian Civil Code Article 318/1 which states: "Place of opening of an inheritance: (Added by law no.121/2013, Article 2): "A succession shall be opened in the last place of residence of the decedent. When the decedent's last place of residence is unknown, the inheritance shall be opened in the place where all his property or the major part thereof is located."
Since his last place of residence was New York the document is legal and must be registered here as such. This denial is a flagrant denial of the basic human right to property ownership of his heirs! So....I will believe all this 'new' procedure when I see some positive and concrete resolutions to my own personal issues which pertain to the Diaspora, my uncle, from the USA. As of today I have not heard any response from the office of Mr. Pandeli Majko, the State Minister for Diaspora, on this very important issue!
Bianca Gjomarkaj Nakovics