New-build apartments in Vilnius: three different things to buy
One phrase in the listings covers three different situations
New-build apartments in Vilnius are advertised in one voice, while behind that voice sit three unrelated situations: a building still being designed, a building under construction, and a building finished, handed over and lived in. The brochure looks much the same in all three cases — a visualisation, floor plans, a list of materials — yet the risk you carry, the papers you should be given and even the questions it is possible to ask differ completely. This page is organised around that difference. For each state it says what to ask the seller for and what you can check on your own without asking anybody. At the end the same list is applied to the building on Gerosios Vilties street, because writing a rule and exempting yourself from it would not be serious.
A building being designed: nothing to inspect, so you read documents
When the building does not exist, your eyes are of no use and only paper is. The first question is not about materials but about whether this building may be built on that particular plot at all: ask for the permit that authorises the construction and for the planning and permitted-use data of the plot. Both are public, held by the municipality and by state registers, so this is not a favour you are asking for — it is information you could obtain yourself. The second question is who will sign. The brand a scheme is marketed under and the legal entity that becomes obliged to you are often not the same. Ask for the full registered name, the company code and the VAT number, then check them in the register of legal entities without telling anyone you are doing it. The third is money. The payment schedule, the conditions on which a sum paid comes back and the time limits involved live in the contract, not in the marketing, which is where you look for them. «Not ready yet» is not automatically a bad answer at this stage; it is information about the stage. It becomes a bad answer the moment it is combined with a request for payment.
A building under construction: you see the process, not the result
On a site there is already something to look at, just not the thing you are buying. You can see the structure going up, the order kept on the site and the quality of the brickwork as it is laid. That is real information about the discipline of whoever is building, and it should not be dismissed. What is not yet visible deserves saying out loud as well: the finished facade, the stair core, the sound insulation between apartments, the grounds, and how the building looks after its first winter. All of that is still a promise, and here a promise lives in the contract. Ask what the contract says about the completion date, about the consequences if it is missed, and about how the apartment will be handed over to you. Ask separately about the document that arrives at the very end. In Lithuania the completion of construction is confirmed by a document of its own, and until it exists the building is not yet a dwelling. Until then you are dealing with future rather than existing property, and that changes the nature of the whole transaction.
A finished building: the part nobody can promise or retouch
In a building that is finished and occupied the promising stops. Three things are worth asking for, and all three are documents rather than statements: the document confirming that construction has been completed, an extract from the Centre of Registers for the building and for the specific apartment with its unique number and cadastral data, and the energy performance certificate issued for that building. We do not print the class stated on it, because we have not verified it, and guessing about a document you can simply be shown makes no sense. Then a second kind of evidence starts to work, the kind no document holds. People already live here, so the building has a history: the stair core has been through several winters, the courtyard has been cleared of snow, the ramp down to the underground parking has either been slippery or not. Neither a brochure nor a sales agent will tell you that. The administrator of the common areas and the neighbours will, and they can simply be asked. That is why a finished building is easier for a buyer — not because it is prettier, but because fewer questions stay open. What you examine is a result rather than an intention.
Comparing new schemes in Vilnius without comparing renders
New schemes in Vilnius are nearly always compared the wrong way, by their visualisations, and every visualisation is handsome because that is what it is made for. Four comparisons are worth making instead, and none of them is a drawing. First, the state. A design, a site and a finished building are not one offer at three prices; they are three purchases with different risk. Second, who the counterparty is. A legal entity, its company code and its register entry can be checked in minutes, while a brand cannot be checked at all. Third, what happens after handover: ask who will administer the common areas and who will maintain the grounds, because this is exactly where a new building either keeps its condition over a couple of seasons or loses it. Fourth, whether the developer has anything finished and occupied in Lithuania that you can walk around with nobody's permission. That fourth test is the least comfortable one for a seller and the most useful one for a buyer. A completed building is the only item in a developer's portfolio that can no longer be redrawn or rephotographed.
Apartment prices in Vilnius: where a trustworthy number comes from
No prices are published on this page, and that is a decision rather than an omission: the number belongs to the developer, not to a website, and a stale number serves a buyer worse than none at all. What can be said is where a number worth trusting comes from. The primary source is one thing only — a written offer, dated and with a validity period, for a specific apartment. Anything said aloud, or written with no date, counts for nothing in a transaction. Put one technical question alongside it: which area figure was the sum divided by, since a price per square metre calculated on different areas produces different numbers for the very same apartment. The second source is independent of the seller. Listing portals publish asking prices, not transaction prices; concluded transactions are registered by the Centre of Registers, and its data is what shows the level people actually paid at. If a mortgage is involved, a third number appears — the valuation commissioned by the bank, written to protect the bank rather than to please the buyer. Three independent numbers about one apartment tell you more than any price list on a website.
The same list applied to the building on Gerosios Vilties street
The building at Gerosios Vilties g. 27 in Vilnius is in the third state: built, handed over and occupied. It is one continuous volume, gently curved in plan, with several stair towers glazed over their full height, separate entrances and a ramp down to underground parking. All of it can be seen on any day of the week without calling anyone, because this is an ordinary Vilnius street. The counterparty can be checked without us as well. The developer is UAB Savo investicija, company code 304499183, VAT number LT100011304015, registered at Gerosios Vilties g. 27-131, Vilnius. The company was registered on 4 April 2017 and belongs to the international SAVO group, which has been on the market since 2006. Those are two dates about two different things, and we do not add them together. What is not here, we say first rather than last: prices, dates, how many apartments remain, the number of storeys, entrances or apartments, the level of fit-out and the stage number. The developer has not confirmed any of it, and an unconfirmed figure does not go on a page however much search would like one. There is also a second scheme of the same name elsewhere in Vilnius; how the two relate has not been confirmed, so this page is about the building on Gerosios Vilties street and nothing else.
Vilnius, Lithuania
- Vilnius is Lithuania's capital and its largest city, in the south-east of the country, where the Vilnia runs into the Neris.
- Its Old Town is a UNESCO World Heritage site and remains one of the largest medieval centres still standing in this part of Europe.
- Newcomers learn the city as a set of districts rather than as a grid: the centre and the Old Town, Naujamiestis, Šnipiškės with the business towers across the river, Antakalnis, Žvėrynas, and the low-rise southern district of Naujininkai.
- The airport sits on the southern edge of the city, a few kilometres out from the centre, with a short rail link and city buses to the main railway station; the railway and coach stations stand next door to one another.
- The A1 motorway runs to Kaunas and the port of Klaipėda, the A2 heads towards Panevėžys, and the European-gauge Rail Baltica corridor, which will tie Lithuania into the western European rail network, is still under construction.
- Lithuania belongs to the European Union and to NATO and its currency is the euro, so a flat here is bought and sold in euros, under European Union law, by residents and non-residents alike.
- Work in the city concentrates in financial technology, the service centres international companies run here, laser and optics manufacturing, and the life sciences.
- Vilnius University has taught since the sixteenth century, and several younger institutions keep a steady population of students and recent graduates in the city.
- Most buyers are Lithuanians, families returning from years abroad among them, alongside people from other European Union countries who move here for the technology and service sectors.
Terms on this subject
Handover record
Signing at the notary and receiving the keys are two separate events. The second is recorded in a short document, and that document later decides whose problem every small fault is.
Mortgage and credit
A bank decides about the borrower and about the flat, separately. Until both decisions exist, every date in the purchase is a forecast — which is why the deadlines are set backwards from the bank's last step.
Questions about the building and about the developer
How does buying in a finished building differ from buying off plan?
In what you examine. Off plan you examine documents and the contract, because the building does not exist yet. In a finished building you examine the result: the completion document, the register extract for the apartment, the energy performance certificate and the building itself, which you can walk around. The first is an assessment of an intention, the second of something already done.
Which document proves that a building really is finished?
The document confirming completion of construction, together with an extract from the Centre of Registers. The first shows that construction was completed in the manner Lithuanian law requires; the second shows that the building and the apartment are registered, who the owner is and what restrictions exist. A verbal assurance that «the building has been handed over» replaces neither.
What does an apartment in this building cost?
We publish no prices. A figure comes from the developer as a written, dated offer with a validity period, and that is the document worth asking for. An answer independent of the seller comes from registered transaction data at the Centre of Registers, and, with a mortgage, from the bank's valuation. A number with no date and no source means nothing in a transaction.
Can schemes in Vilnius be compared by their visualisations?
No, because a visualisation is advertising rather than data. Compare by state (design, site or finished building), by who the counterparty is and whether it can be checked in the register, by who will administer the common areas after handover, and by whether the developer already has a finished, occupied building in Lithuania.
If the building is already finished, is there nothing left to check?
There is, only the checking is different. A finished building answers questions about the facade, the stair core and the grounds, but it says nothing about the legal position of one specific apartment — that comes from the register extract. It is also worth asking who administers the common areas and what the day-to-day maintenance actually looks like.
Ask about this building in Vilnius
Write and say what you want to know about this building: the materials, the grounds, the place or getting around. The answer comes from the person who works on this project in Vilnius.