Bosnian lawyer for clients in Germany

Author: Azur Prnjavorac, attorney at law | Updated: 20 September 2026

In brief. If you live in Germany and have something to settle before a court, notary, land registry or authority in Bosnia and Herzegovina, you do not need to travel. You have a power of attorney certified at the Consulate General of BiH in Frankfurt, Munich or Stuttgart, at the Embassy in Berlin, or before a German notary with an apostille, send it by post, and from that moment the office conducts the matter in your place: the probate of your parents' estate, sale or purchase of real estate and clearing the title in the land register, divorce and division of the property acquired in marriage, re-acquisition of Bosnian citizenship and questions of dual citizenship after the German reform of 2024, debt collection. Correspondence runs by email in English, German or Bosnian, and you know the cost before we start. The office has worked since 1993, and a large share of our clients live in Germany.

How we represent you if you do not travel to BiH

Representation at a distance is not an exception for us but the normal way of working. The legal basis is the power of attorney: once certified, the attorney files applications and claims in your name, attends hearings and probate sessions, gives the declarations you have entrusted to him, signs the contract before the notary, applies for registration of title and collects decisions. After each stage you receive in Germany a written report with copies of the submissions and decisions and with the next step and deadline, so that you always know where the matter stands. For questions that need a conversation we arrange a telephone or video call; since Germany and BiH share the same time, our office hours of 08:00 to 16:00 are yours too.

Two things cannot be done without you. The declaration of inheritance is given in person at the consulate unless you have authorised the attorney to give it, and for the sale of real estate the notary in BiH requires a power of attorney that precisely describes the property and the price, which is why we draft such powers with particular care. Everything else we do.

Power of attorney from Germany: how it is drawn up and where it is certified

We draft the power of attorney, in Bosnian and tailored to the matter: a general power for representation before courts and authorities, or a special power for one defined act (probate, sale of a specific property, registration of children, renunciation of citizenship). You only sign it before the body that certifies the signature. In Germany there are two routes. Content, form and certification of the power of attorney by country: power of attorney for a lawyer in Bosnia from abroad.

First route, the BiH consulate. Certification of your signature at the Consulate General of BiH in Frankfurt am Main, Munich or Stuttgart, or at the Embassy in Berlin, depending on the federal state where you live. A power certified this way is a document of our diplomatic and consular mission, needs no apostille and can be used in BiH at once. You arrange the appointment with the consulate in advance; addresses, telephone numbers and opening hours are on the page Embassy of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Germany.

Second route, a German notary and an apostille. If the consulate is far away or no appointment is available, you have your signature certified before any German notary (Unterschriftsbeglaubigung). That document is a German public document and, for use in BiH, must carry an apostille under the Hague Convention of 1961, because there is no bilateral treaty between Germany and BiH that would dispense with it. In Germany the apostille on notarial documents is issued by the president of the Landgericht (regional court) for the district where the notary is based; for civil registry and other administrative documents the competent body is the state authority (Regierungspräsidium, Bezirksregierung or Landesverwaltungsamt, depending on the federal state). The notary can tell you which Landgericht is competent, and many notaries obtain the apostille themselves.

A power of attorney written in Bosnian is certified by a German notary without difficulty, because the notary certifies the signature, not the content. If the notary asks for a German text, we prepare a bilingual version. You send us the original by post or courier and the scan by email so that we can start preparing at once.

Which documents need translating and who translates them

German documents used before authorities in BiH, for example a birth or marriage certificate, a divorce judgment, a death certificate, a registration certificate or a notarial contract, need the apostille of the competent German body and a translation. The translation for courts and authorities in BiH is made by a court interpreter for German appointed in BiH; a translation by a translator sworn in Germany is mostly not accepted by BiH authorities without certification by a domestic interpreter. It is therefore simpler to send us the apostilled original; we organise the translation and certification at a per-page price stated in advance.

Documents from BiH that you need in Germany, civil status certificates, proof of citizenship, criminal record certificate, land register extracts, we obtain on the basis of the power of attorney and, where the German authority requires it, have apostilled in BiH. More on the page apostille and legalisation.

How long it takes and what it costs

How long it takes depends on the type of matter and on the court or authority handling it, so we give ranges from practice and a precise estimate only after reviewing the documents. Probate without a dispute among the heirs usually takes a few months from the application, considerably longer if the heirs disagree or the property is not registered in the deceased's name. A sale or purchase of real estate with a clean land register entry is completed within a few weeks of receiving the certified power of attorney; if the entry is not in order, the title is put right first, which can take months. Recognition of a foreign divorce judgment is a non-contentious procedure normally finished in a few weeks to a couple of months. Re-acquisition of Bosnian citizenship under Article 14 takes several months: residence in BiH is arranged first, then the guarantee of acquisition of citizenship is issued, valid for two years, and the decision on admission follows once proof of the loss of German citizenship is submitted. Renunciation of BiH citizenship, where it is still required, takes about a month from the power of attorney to the decision. Debt collection depends on whether the debtor disputes the claim: with an authentic document enforcement starts at once, litigation takes longer.

The price is known in advance. An attorney in the Federation of BiH charges under the Attorney Tariff of the Federation (point value 6.50 KM, that is 3.32 EUR in 2026), and a different arrangement may be agreed with the client in writing: a fixed fee for a defined piece of work, an hourly rate or a ceiling that will not be exceeded. With clients abroad we usually work exactly that way, because they want to know the full amount before we start; an exchange of emails containing the essential terms counts as a written agreement. Court and notary fees, the sworn translator's charges and, for real estate in the Federation of BiH, the tax on the transfer of immovable property under cantonal rules (in Republika Srpska that tax was abolished in 2012) come on top, and we tell you about them beforehand. We issue the estimate and the invoice in convertible marks with the amount in euros (fixed rate 1 EUR = 1.95583 KM), and you pay by bank transfer from Germany in euros to the office account; the amount on the estimate is the amount you pay, with no later additions. Details: attorney tariff and notary fees.

Dual citizenship and re-acquisition of Bosnian citizenship from Germany

This is the question clients in Germany ask us most often today, so it has a section of its own. On 27 June 2024 the German Nationality Act changed the rule that for decades decided the fate of the Bosnian passport: a person being naturalised no longer has to give up the previous citizenship, and a German citizen who acquires another citizenship no longer loses the German one. For people with roots in Bosnia and Herzegovina this produces three different situations, and different rules apply to each.

In practice, therefore, re-acquisition is an option for those returning to Bosnia and Herzegovina or already living there, for instance pensioners who have decided to live in their homeland, and not for those who stay in Germany and want to keep the German passport. Our office handled the first such case in BiH: the re-acquisition of citizenship for a client who had been a German citizen for more than twenty years, from the residence application through the guarantee of the Federal Ministry of the Interior to the decision on admission. Before anything is started we give a written assessment of whether, and under which conditions, re-acquisition is an option at all in your case, because that is the question most often got wrong. We still handle release from BiH citizenship, but after the reform it is needed only in older procedures in which the German authority has already issued an Einbürgerungszusicherung with that condition, and in other countries that still require it; the procedure is described on the page renunciation of BiH citizenship.

You may not be able to hold dual citizenship, but your children can

This is the point clients in Germany most often overlook. Anyone who renounced BiH citizenship to become German can regain it only under Article 14, that is with residence in BiH and loss of German citizenship. Children, however, are in a different position: BiH citizenship by descent arises at the moment of birth, and the law ties the requirement to give up a foreign citizenship solely to naturalisation. A child born while the father or mother was still a citizen of BiH is therefore a citizen of BiH from birth, even though the parent no longer holds that citizenship, and can hold both the Bosnian and the German passport. The same applies to grandchildren, if the child had its BiH citizenship registered before they were born. We have set out all the conditions, by article and by date of birth, on the pages obtaining the citizenship of Bosnia and Herzegovina: conditions and procedure and how to get citizenship of BiH; here is what matters for families in Germany.

In practical terms: a parent who has become a German citizen and stays in Germany as a rule cannot hold both citizenships, but his children and grandchildren can, provided they are registered in time. Registration is done at the registry office in BiH at the parent's place of registration, on the basis of the German birth certificate with an apostille and translation and the parent's certificate of citizenship, which we obtain; after registration come the personal identification number and the passport at the consulate. Children with both citizenships keep all their rights in BiH, above all in inheritance and in acquiring real estate without the reciprocity restrictions.

The most common matters of clients in Germany

From the first email to a settled matter: six steps

1. Enquiry by email. You describe the situation and send what you have: civil status certificates, land register extracts, contracts, decisions, earlier correspondence. Nothing needs to be translated for this step.
2. Legal assessment and cost frame. You receive in writing an assessment of the case, the proposed steps, realistic timelines and a cost frame, before you commit to anything.
3. Draft power of attorney. We draft the power of attorney with exactly the powers the procedure requires, neither wider nor narrower, so that the court, notary or land registry accepts it the first time.
4. Certification of the power of attorney. You have the power of attorney certified at the BiH consulate in Frankfurt, Munich, Stuttgart or Berlin, or before a German notary with a Landgericht apostille. You send the scan at once by email and the original by post.
5. Conduct of the matter in BiH. We obtain documents and represent you before the court, notary, land registry, cadastre, tax administration and authorities. After each stage you receive a written report with the next steps and deadlines.
6. Completion. Once the decision is final we register the title, supervise payment of the purchase price or carry out the other closing act and send you the originals. As a rule you do not need to travel to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

What clients from Germany say

The office has more than 1,000 Google reviews averaging 5.0 on two business profiles and 193 ratings on the German portal anwalt.de, and it is among the law offices recommended by the embassies of Germany, the United States and the United Kingdom in BiH. Two reviews from clients in Germany, translated and shortened with the authors' consent:

All published ratings, including those of clients in Germany, are on the page client reviews.

Our main practice areas for clients abroad

Most matters from abroad fall within a few practice areas in which the office has worked since 1993. Each has its own page with the procedure, timelines and costs:

Legislation and sources this page is based on

This page was written by an attorney on the basis of the legislation in force in Bosnia and Herzegovina and its entities. Legal sources verified on 20 September 2026. Statutory texts are in Bosnian.