Welcome to The Brook House. We would love to share our story of building a wooden passive house in Slovenia.

We'll share the highs and lows, the administrative steps and specific passive house technicalities, which will be useful if you are planning to build a wooden house, a passive house, or frankly any house in Slovenia. 

Finding land in Slovenia is relatively easy. Finding land at a good price with good access is a bit harder.

The main place to search is nepremicnine.net and the english version: realestate-slovenia.info 

The search engine is pretty good, although they don't have a way of viewing the results on a map which would save quite a bit of time!

For example this is a search for buildable land plots (i.e, not agricultural) that are in the LJ surroundings and are between 1000 and 2000 sq m in size:

As you can see, there are currently 208 results. Its fairly easy to browse through, see roughly where the land is and a description. Quite a few adverts have minimal information on the english language version of the site though, so if you are interested in a piece of land its worth looking it up on the Slovene version of the site (and using Google Translate :-)). The best way to find the land on the Slovene version is to search by the "ad reference number".

Once you find land that you are interested in, you can contact the seller (or their agent). We advise to ask for the following:

The parcel number - with this you can search for the land on one of the GIS portals. For example in Ljubljana you can use gis.iobcina.si . You can register for free and get loads of information about a particular plot, for example the exact size, how it is zoned, flood risk, utility connections, etc. 

The "Lokacijska informacija" (location information) - the seller should have this - it gives the detailed conditions on what can be built on the plot. There may be restrictions on what shape the house can be, its height, what percentage of the plot it can take up, etc. Any architect or pre-fab house company will need this information to advise you on the plot.

With the above information there are a few things that it is good to consider:

Is there access from a public road. Quite a few plots don't have direct access from a public road - this isn't a deal breaker, but could add a lot of time and cost to your build. In some circumstances it may mean you need permission from a host of land owners to build a road. 

Some plots have an existing building permit. If you are happy to roughly follow the design included in the permit this can be a shortcut. Not many plots have this though, and its likely that the reason you want to build your own house is so that it can be fully customised to your tastes, so this may not even be that useful.

This varies a lot. There are some plots that don't are awaiting detailed spacial planning. These plots can't be built on until this is completed by the municipality - so there is a lot of risk in buying them as an individual. Some plots have very prescriptive spacial planning and building restrictions - this isn't necessarily bad, but you definitely need to be aware. 

There is an amount of money that needs to be paid to the municipality for each plot of building land to cover things like road access, etc. This only needs to be paid once per house per plot of land - so if you are buying land with an old house that you will demolish then you may not need to pay this. If you are knocking down one house and building two houses, then you will need to pay the difference. The amount varies a lot, in some areas where lots of houses are being built and a lot of new infrastructure is needed the cost could be €80.000+, whereas existing built-up areas may only require a €10.000 contribution. The seller of the land should have an idea on how much this will be.

The plot may have beautiful views, but if it is all at a 30 degree angle then your foundation costs are going to be enormous. From our research, the reduction in price for sloped land was never enough to offset the increased cost of building on that land. 

There is huge variation in land costs from €30 to €500 a square metre. Our experience is that if the land is cheap, there is a reason. It could be that there is no access, or it is steep, or it is far away from any main roads, or its not possible to build yet, etc.

If you are looking in the Ljubljana area and you want good access then you need to be ready to pay €250+ per sq metre of buildable land. Premium land will be up to €500 a sq metre, and if you are ready to be 10min+ from the highway your prices can go down to €60 a sq metre. You need a minimum of 400 sq m, but ideally something closer to 1000 sq m if you want a decent house with parking and privacy. This means that in the LJ area you are looking at spending between €100.000 and €400.000 just on land.  A smaller plot off the beaten track however could only cost you €30.000. 

I hope this information was useful. We'll post more detailed information on how the actual purchase process works in another post.

We've had our first meeting with our architect - Matej Gasperič on our plot.

We found Matej via Ekoart - a wooden house builder here in Slovenia. We love the idea of building with wood and luckily for us there are many wooden house builders in Slovenia. However most wooden construction methods use CLT - cross laminated timber. These are essentially glued wooden panels and beams that are very strong and are very versatile construction material. Ekoart are a bit different , they have a patented IQWood product that "consists of cross-stacked wooden boards, firmly and permanently joined with solid wooden dowels".  

We loved the idea of a house built only with natural materials - and although we haven't fully decided to complete the project with Ekoart - we are very tempted. While the construction materials for a house don't need to dictate the house design, we found that many of the Ekoart projects matched our desired style. The nice thing with Ekoart houses is that the construction material can be exposed internally - there is no need for additional cladding. They look beautiful.

When looking at Ekoart references, we found that many of the houses had been designed by Matej. We found his portfolio and fell in love with many of his previous houses. 

We put together a fairly detailed proposal and arranged a meeting on site. It was a great first meeting - we were outside due to the pandemic restrictions but we were able to talk about our brief and what we are looking for in a house.

Although our plot has significant disadvantages (an apartment building to the south, unfinished roads, etc.) we loved that Matej was able to see the potential in the plot. We have direct access to a brook (stream) and he was excited at the prospect of designing a house that connected with this beautiful piece of nature. 

We left the meeting encouraged and looking forward to receive a proposal from Matej.

This is a simple question, but has many answers :-)

I'll try and break it down into 5 key reasons:

Slovenia has some of the most beautiful scenery in the world. Lakes and mountains, rivers and canyons, valleys and vineyards, forests and flowers, cliffs and beaches. There are not many places in the world where you can ski in the morning and have coffee by the Adriatic in the afternoon. The nature here is unspoilt, with 70% of the country covered in protected forests. 

Slovenia is the sunny side of the alps. We have gorgeously warm summers, yet the proximity to the alps brings naturally cool mornings even in heat waves. We have proper winters with beautiful snowy peaks and frozen lakes. Where we live in the centre of Slovenia - there is very little wind. We didn't realise how much of a difference this makes to quality of life. 

We are in the centre of Europe. Austria, Italy and Croatia are all less than an hour away. A weekend trip to Vienna or Prague, a day trip to Venice, a night out in Zagreb are all possible. Slovenia itself is small yet delightfully diverse. We live in one of the most beautiful cities in the world - Ljubljana. From here we can get to the coast or the mountains in less than an hour. 

Slovenes are hard working, no nonsense people who enjoy a good time. The "work hard, play hard" philosophy is manifested in abundance. People often start work at 6 or 7 in the morning, and then go hiking or cycling or skiing in the afternoon. There are issues with the politics (like most places), but the people are generally welcoming and often speak amazing english. We've met so many lovely Slovenes, and we feel there is much less of a "class" problem here compared to quite a few other European countries 9especially the UK).

The quality of food and drink in Slovenia is amazing. There are so many good restaurants, and compared to other places they don't cot an arm and a leg. There are cafes on every corner - all serving good coffee. You can order a Kava z mlekom everywhere - its like a flat white, but has been around way before that became a thing. In many other European countries buying a coffee is a bit of a gamble - it may be good, or it may be terrible, not so in Slovenia. Its not just coffee, but Slovenia has stunningly good wine, a crazy amount of craft beers and award winning gin. The capital Ljubljana is buzzing and a great place to be in Summer and Winter alike - with its river-side cafes, castle on the hill, art galleries, open air concerts and huge pedestrian zone. 

We are proud to call Slovenia our home. If you've never visited, then plan a trip - you won't be disappointed. 

NB - all the images in this post are photos we've taken ourselves

So you've found land to buy, how do you buy it.

The steps are slightly different to the UK, here is our experience of how it works:

Agree a price - a lot of people will accept 20% under the asking price, so don't be afraid to negotiate

Get a contract drawn up - some times the estate agent will help with this, but our experience was that it was better to do this with a lawyer directly, we used: http://www.odv-lamut.si/

We would advise getting a survey done of the property to uncover any issues which should perhaps be included in the contract. We used our friend who is an architect to this work, but it was really useful as it helped us understand the various complexities with the land we were buying, e.g. how does access to the land work, what are the flood risks, etc.

The contract will set out two key amounts that need to be paid - the deposit and the final payment. Once the contract is signed the deposit needs to be paid in a short time period. Once the deposit is paid both parties are committed to the transaction and there are penalties if either party cancels the agreement.

If you are getting a mortgage, then the bank you are using will need to see the contract before you sign it. If you are a foreigner living in Slovenia then there are fewer banks who will be willing to lend to you. We found Sparkasse to be the most helpful. 

Once you sign the contract and pay the deposit, the seller needs to send the signed contract to the tax authorities for the calculation of how much tax is to be paid. The seller then needs to pay the tax, after which the tax authority will stamp the contract and send it back to the seller.

At this point the contract is lodged with a Notary until the final payment is made.

When the final payment is made, the Notary can then register the change of ownership on the land register - to do this you need to pay a court fee.

If you have a mortgage and you are not a native Slovene speaker then to you will need a court translator with you when you sign the mortgage contract at the Notary. You will also need 2 witnesses to be there for the signing of the contract. We are really grateful to our friends who came and sat through a 2 hour reading of the mortgage contract in order to witness it!
 

Although the process was different from the UK, we actually found it a bit more transparent. There was less of an issue with waiting for solicitors to speak to each other and doing "searches". 

The fact that the land register is fully digital and that there are free GIS tools that allow you to explore a wealth of information about any plot of land before committing to a purchase gives a lot of confidence.

Our own process was relatively complicated as we bought 3 plots of land from 2 different sellers, but it is done now.

Please feel free to contact us on hello@woodenpassivehouse.com if you would like any further details.

This was our first meeting where we would real plans for our house. Before now it had all been conceptual - but at this meeting we looked at where on the plot the house would go. 

To our surprise (and delight), Matej had created a 3d model of the plot. This made it a lot easier to visualise where the house should go and the impact of the neighbouring buildings on our sunlight. 

This is a picture of the 3d model of our plot:

We played around with different positions of the house and looked at sketches that Matej had drawn:

This option was interesting as we would have separate gardens - one by the river and one the other side of the house. We decided against it though as it didn't make the best use of the sun on the plot.

This version made slightly better use of the sun.- but we still decided against it 

This version had a u-shape opening up to the river. We really liked the design, but again it didn't make the best use of sunlight.

This version gave us a lot of privacy in our garden as it used the house to block out the view of the neighbouring apartment building. However it also didn't make the best use of sunlight.

This version made better use of the garden, but a lot of the house wouldn't enjoy the sun.

This version also gave us a private garden - but the house itself would be blocking the sun from the garden.

We decided to go with this option for the following reasons:

It made best use of the sun - all the rooms in the house can have south facing windows

It keeps the garden together - rather than separating it

It pushes the house up to the north of the plot - so that we can make the best use of the available land

It allows us to give access to the garden from multiple rooms in the house

We can have the morning sun in the kitchen / living room

We can have a nice view to the river from the living room.

We can use an outbuilding (studio) to provide privacy to the garden from the apartment building

We used our phone torches to simulate how the sun rises and sets on the property. This was incredibly useful to see the impact of the apartment building on our garden. 

This is a 3d model with our chosen house location:

We left the meeting in good spirits - with agreement on all sides about the best location for the building. The next steps were twofold:

Arrange with the neighbours to get permission to build close to the border (and potentially do a land swap)

Move forward with conceptual designs for the house with our chosen location.

After our first meeting, Matej went away to work up a proposal, which he presented back to us at our next meeting.

At this stage we weren't sure whether we would chose to go with Matej or not - so the meeting was quite important. We were impressed that Matej had understood our brief and we liked the way he runs his studio. 

Rather than have a limited number of changes - with charges for additional changes, Matej offered a fixed cost that would see the project through to completion. It included potentially unlimited changes and as many site visits as necessary. While we had a slightly cheaper quote from another architect, we liked Matej's approach to the project.  

The proposal set out the following steps and indicative timelines:

Jan 2021 – preparatory works (LI, geodetic survey, snapshot of the existing situation, model, updating of starting points,…), 

Jan 2021 – April 2021 – conceptual design and obtaining project conditions, 

Mar 2021 – May 2021– obtaining opinions (Elektro Ljubljana, municipality,...), 

May 2021 – DGD – filling the application for building permit, 

May – Aug 2021 – coordination with the Administrative Unit (UE) and the preparation of the PZI - falls exactly into the holidays season, so this period, based on past experience, has been extended by one month, 

Sept 2021 – PZI finalised, building permit (GD) obtained 

Aug - Sept 2021 – tenders; interviews with potential contractors and the selection of contractors

Autumn / winter 2021 – earthworks and construction work (depending on weather conditions and occupancy of contractors), 

Spring / Summer 2022 – wooden construction assembling (depending on weather conditions and occupancy of contractors) 

From discussions with Matej and friends, the riskiest part of the timeline is gaining the building permit (DGD). Although the municipality are supposed to make a decision within a couple of months - we've heard that it can take well over a year. The above plan allows 4-5 months for this process which could well be optimistic. 

Our budget for the building project (excluding the land is €300.000). The architect's costs came in at €28.500 - 9.5% of the total budget. While this is a significant cost, we are happy with the decision as we are confidant that Matej and his team will design a beautiful house that we will enjoy living in for many years. Matej will also look after the budget and do his best to ensure that we can achieve the goals we have for the house with as few trade-offs as possible.

We decided to go ahead with Matej because he has designed many beautiful houses that we feel we would love living in. We felt that he understood our aims in building our own house and that he shared many of our values. Here is his profile on Open House Slovenia. 

At the end of the day, building your own house is an emotional journey - not just a calculated spreadsheet led decision. We connected with Matej and decided that we would trust him with what is likely to be the biggest financial investment of our lives.

We agreed to get back to Matej within a week (although we'd already decided to go ahead with him :-)). 

The next steps after that were to arrange the geodetic survey of the land and for him to start work on the conceptual design.

The Brook House

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