In its Judgment File No. 22 Cdo 2979/2018 dated 27 March 2019, the Czech Supreme Court commented on the right of preemption between owners of lands and buildings. If a joint-ownership share in a land lot or in a building built on such land lot is transferred, unless the acquisition of such share by the owner of the land lot would result in unification of the title to both the land lot and the building, the owners cannot exercise the preemption right as defined in Section 3056(1) CC.
According to the Supreme Court, Section 3056(1) is an exception from the principle of free will, which cannot be interpreted extensively, provided that the rule does not specify that it should be applied to transfer of joint-ownership shares. This means that the rule can only be applied to scenarios where exercising of the right results in unification of the legal title to both the land lot and the building thereupon built, merging both to become a single object in the legal sense – i.e., a land lot, a dependent part of which is the building. This happens especially when the whole building or the whole land lot is transferred. Another possibility is a transfer of a joint-ownership share, which results in the unification of title to the land lot and the building built there.