posjedovati (to own / possess) | Croatian Grammar

Posjedovati ("to own, to possess") is the formal way to express ownership in Croatian — the verb of legal documents, financial reports, and CVs, not of everyday speech. In ordinary conversation Croatian uses imati ("to have") for the same idea: you imaš a car, but a contract says you posjeduješ it. The verb is imperfective (ownership is a state), it governs the accusative, and its present runs on the -uje- stem (posjedujem) — the regular -ova- → -uje- swap. It is also the mirror image of pripadati ("to belong"): "X posjeduje Y" says exactly the same thing as "Y pripada X-u", just from the owner's side.

Aspect

Posjedovati is imperfective and has no everyday perfective partner. Owning is a continuous state, so there is nothing to "complete" — you do not finish owning, you acquire (steći, kupiti) and then own. For the event of coming to own something, Croatian switches to a different verb (steći "to acquire", kupiti "to buy"); posjedovati covers only the standing state.

Verb	Aspect	Present 1sg	Typical use
posjedovati	imperfective	posjedujem	the ongoing state of owning (formal)
steći	perfective (different verb)	steknem	"to acquire / come to own" — the entry event, not a true aspect partner

Like other stative verbs (imati, znati, pripadati), it lives mostly in the present and past and rarely takes an imperative. See aspect: the overview.

💡

Drill the present-stem swap: posjedovati → posjedujem, posjeduješ, posjeduje…, never *posjedovam. The infinitive's -ova- collapses to -uje- — exactly like kupovati → kupujem or putovati → putujem.

Present tense

The infinitive posjedovati swaps its -ova- for -uje- in the present.

Person	Form	Meaning
ja	posjedujem	I own
ti	posjeduješ	you own
on/ona/ono	posjeduje	he/she/it owns
mi	posjedujemo	we own
vi	posjedujete	you own
oni/one/ona	posjeduju	they own

Tvrtka posjeduje tri poslovne zgrade u centru grada.

The company owns three office buildings in the city centre. — formal register, accusative object.

Da bi se prijavili, kandidati moraju posjedovati vozačku dozvolu.

To apply, candidates must possess a driving licence. — bureaucratic register.

The l-participle

A regular -ovati verb on the stem posjedova-: masculine posjedovao (vocalised -l), feminine posjedovala.

Gender / number	Form
masculine singular	posjedovao
feminine singular	posjedovala
neuter singular	posjedovalo
masculine plural	posjedovali
feminine plural	posjedovale
neuter plural	posjedovala

Perfect tense (perfekt)

Clitic biti + l-participle. Because posjedovati is stative and imperfective, its past reads "used to own / owned (over a period)".

Person	Masculine subject	Feminine subject
ja	posjedovao sam	posjedovala sam
ti	posjedovao si	posjedovala si
on / ona	posjedovao je	posjedovala je
mi	posjedovali smo	posjedovale smo
vi	posjedovali ste	posjedovale ste
oni / one	posjedovali su	posjedovale su

Obitelj je nekoć posjedovala velik posjed uz rijeku.

The family once owned a large estate by the river. — past state; note the noun 'posjed'.

Future I (futur prvi)

The infinitive ends in -ti, so it drops its final -i before the clitic: posjedovat ću (never posjedovati ću).

Person	Form
ja	posjedovat ću
ti	posjedovat ćeš
on/ona/ono	posjedovat će
mi	posjedovat ćemo
vi	posjedovat ćete
oni/one/ona	posjedovat će

Nakon spajanja, nova će grupa posjedovati većinski udio.

After the merger, the new group will own a majority stake. — business register.

Imperative

There is effectively no imperative — you cannot order someone to own something. The closest natural expression uses a different verb (Nabavi… "get / acquire…"). This row is skipped because the form simply does not occur in real use.

Conditional I (kondicional prvi)

bih-clitics + l-participle — occasionally useful for hypothetical ownership.

Person	Form (masc.)
ja	posjedovao bih
ti	posjedovao bi
on/ona/ono	posjedovao/posjedovala/posjedovalo bi
mi	posjedovali bismo
vi	posjedovali biste
oni/one/ona	posjedovali bi

Kad bismo posjedovali patent, situacija bi bila posve drukčija.

If we owned the patent, the situation would be completely different.

Other forms

Verbal noun: posjedovanje ("ownership, possession") — formal/legal, as in posjedovanje oružja ("possession of a weapon").
Related noun posjed: "an estate, a holding, a (landed) property" — obiteljski posjed ("the family estate"). Also "possession / tenure" in legal phrasing.
Related noun vlasnik: "owner" (feminine vlasnica); the abstract vlasništvo is "ownership". Note that for "owner" Croatian uses vlasnik, not a noun built from posjedovati.
Verbal adverb: posjedujući ("[while] possessing"), restricted to formal prose.

Posjedovanje vatrenog oružja strogo je regulirano zakonom.

Possession of a firearm is strictly regulated by law. — the verbal noun, legal register.

Key uses and government

1. Ownership: accusative

The object of posjedovati — what is owned — goes into the accusative. This covers concrete property (a house, land, shares) and, by extension, abstract assets (knowledge, a skill, a quality).

On posjeduje kuću na otoku i stan u gradu.

He owns a house on the island and a flat in the city. — accusative objects.

Posjeduje znanje koje je danas vrlo traženo.

He possesses knowledge that is much sought after today. — abstract object 'znanje'.

See the accusative as direct object and the government overview.

2. When to use posjedovati vs imati

This is the practical heart of the entry. Both mean "have/own", but they belong to different registers:

imati is the neutral, everyday verb. It is what you say in conversation, and it covers far more than ownership — relationships, states, obligations (imam brata, imam vremena, imam 30 godina).
posjedovati is formal and narrow: it means specifically to own / to possess and appears in legal, financial, administrative, and elevated written contexts. Using it in casual speech sounds stiff or bureaucratic.

So a friend asks Imaš li auto? ("Do you have a car?"), but a loan application reads Posjedujete li nekretninu? ("Do you own real estate?"). Crucially, posjedovati cannot replace imati in its non-ownership senses: you cannot posjedovati a brother, the time, or an age.

U razgovoru bismo rekli „imam stan”, a u ugovoru piše „posjeduje stan”.

In conversation we'd say „I have a flat”, while a contract says „owns a flat”. — register contrast imati vs posjedovati.

Imam dvoje djece i malo slobodnog vremena.

I have two children and little free time. — 'imati' only; you cannot 'posjedovati' children or time.

See imati for the everyday verb in full.

3. The inverse of pripadati: own ↔ belong

Posjedovati and pripadati describe the same relationship from opposite ends. Posjedovati puts the owner in the subject and the owned thing in the accusative; pripadati puts the owned thing in the subject and the owner in the dative. The two sentences below are truth-equivalent:

Banka posjeduje zgradu.

The bank owns the building. — owner = subject, thing = accusative.

Zgrada pripada banci.

The building belongs to the bank. — thing = subject, owner = dative 'banci'.

Switching between them is a standard paraphrase: choose posjedovati when the owner is the topic ("the bank owns…"), pripadati when the thing is the topic ("the building belongs to…"). Do not mix the case frames — posjedovati never takes the dative, and pripadati never takes the accusative. See the full pripadati entry for its dative paradigm.

Common Mistakes

❌ Posjedovam kuću.

Wrong stem — '-ovati' verbs take the '-uje-' present: 'posjedujem kuću'.

✅ Posjedujem kuću.

I own a house.

❌ Posjedujem brata i dvoje djece.

Wrong verb — 'posjedovati' is only for property/possessions. For relationships use 'imati': 'Imam brata i dvoje djece'.

✅ Imam brata i dvoje djece.

I have a brother and two children.

❌ Zgrada posjeduje banci.

Wrong direction and case — the OWNER owns the thing (accusative). With the thing as subject use 'pripadati' + dative: 'Zgrada pripada banci'.

✅ Zgrada pripada banci.

The building belongs to the bank.

❌ Hej, posjeduješ li auto?

Too formal for casual speech — 'posjedovati' sounds bureaucratic among friends. Say 'Imaš li auto?'

✅ Hej, imaš li auto?

Hey, do you have a car?

❌ Posjedovati ću većinski udio.

The future drops the infinitive's final -i before the clitic: 'Posjedovat ću'.

✅ Posjedovat ću većinski udio.

I'll own a majority stake.

Key Takeaways

posjedovati (impf, posjedujem, posjedovao) = "to own / possess" — note the -ova- → -uje- present swap; no everyday perfective partner.
Government: accusative object (posjedovati kuću / znanje).
Register matters: posjedovati is formal (legal, financial, administrative); the everyday verb is imati, which also covers non-ownership senses posjedovati cannot.
It is the inverse of pripadati: "X posjeduje Y" (owner + accusative) = "Y pripada X-u" (thing + dative).
Useful nouns: posjed ("estate/holding"), vlasnik ("owner"), posjedovanje ("possession"). Future drops -i: posjedovat ću.

Now practice Croatian

Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.

Start learning Croatian→