September the 19th, 2021 - Motel Plitvice has been a favourite among locals and tourists using Croatia's motorways for very many years now, but now its fate lies in Croatian Motorways' (HAC) hands.
As Novac/Vedran Marjanovic writes, the fate of Motel Plitvice, a favourite place to stop for many road users along the Zagreb - Bregana highway, is in the hands of Croatian Motorways after the Zagreb Commercial Court recently determined the debt of the motel, which requested pre-bankruptcy back in the spring.
Out of the total court-determined debt of Motel Plitvice of 39.6 million kuna, HAC's claim accounts for 33.4 million kuna of it, meaning that the motel cannot proceed from pre-bankruptcy without the consent of HAC, if the creditors vote that way.
The management of Motel Plitvice initially requested the opening of pre-bankruptcy procedings due to the consequences of the coronavirus crisis on business and its goal is to arrange the repayment of the incurred debt of 17 million kuna so that the motel can operate.
In the proposal of the pre-bankruptcy plan, the management of Motel Plitvice also stated a debt to HAC of 11.9 million kuna, but the court determined that it was in actual fact three times higher than that. This is part of a long-standing dispute between Motel Plitvice and HAC over the use of land on which the motel, with some other facilities, operates on both sides of the busy motorway.
The two parties never entered into a land use agreement, although, as established in a court case initiated by HAC back in 2001, they were supposed to do so.
As there was no contract to fall back on, Motel Plitvice disputed HAC's request that it remain indebted for the use of the land only from 2001 to 2009, in the amount of 12 million kuna. Over time, the motel's debt to HAC, according to the calculation of state highways, increased to a massive 78.1 million kuna. Ultimately, HAC won the dispute in the Commercial and High Commercial Courts, and Motel Plitvice failed even with an appeal in the Supreme Court.
HAC recently revealed that converting the receivables they have from Motel Plitvice into ownership of the motel is not an option they have on the table because, as they point out, the Roads Act doesn't allow them to proceed with such a model.
''The position of HAC on the pre-bankruptcy of Motel Plitvice depends on the final settlement proposal and the measures that will eventually be proposed by the revised restructuring plan,'' they stated quite simply from HAC.
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