Your Partner in Bulgaria.

Married to a Bulgarian: a residence paradox

The Bulgarian Migration Directorate misapplies the Directive 2004/38/EC of the European Parliament. The Directive regulates the regime of free movement of EU citizens and members of their families.

The particular rule that has been misapplied is that the citizens of EU member states are under the same regime as the members of their family in other EU host country. The only difference is that, in some EU member states, the family members may be required to apply for entrance visa. NO other requirements are set in the directive.

If you are married to a Bulgarian (already a EU citizen), you can apply for long term residence, on the ground that your spouse is a Bulgarian. The Migration Directorate will issue a long term certificate for you, but it will require you to pay 500 Levs per year.

Usually, the latter fee is required by the common foreigner regime. The fee is not required for family members of EU citizens. But Bulgarians are EU citizens, aren’t they?

A paradox! You are eligible to receive residence certificate on the ground of EU Directive, but you have to pay a fee which is required by the common regime. In fact this fee should be illegal.

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Company Re-registration: what a fuss!

If you happen to be involved in the company re-registration fuss in Bulgaria, you would probably know how necesary is to keep a stiff upper lip. The first step that you have to make is to acquire a certificate for re-registration from the court. The Commercial Register Act specifies that the latter certificate shall be issued within three days after the application is submitted.

Instead of three days, the court administration issues the certificate five days after the the application is submitted. Only two clerks process the paperwork therefore a fifty-metres-long queue is formed infront of the submittion desk.

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The new Companies register entered into force on 01 January 2008

As from 01 January 2008, a new Companies register started in Bulgaria. Pursuant to the Commercial Register Act each company registered in Bulgaria have to re-register. The latter action is necessary because the company information have to be moved from the Court Register to the new Companies Register. There won’t be any due state fees if the companies don’t make changes to their status. If you, for example, want to increase your capital or replace your Manager: that will be treated as a change in the company’s status and a state fee will be due.

Some of the main new features of the Companies register are:

  1. Basically it will be possible to register a company for less than a week.
  2. The location of the authority where you have to submit the registration documents is not bonded to the registered address of the company.
  3. It is possible to register a company and to make changes to already registered company via the Internet (digital signature (“DS”) issued by a Bulgarian DS provider is required).
  4. Reduced amount of state fees
  5. All state authorities will not require certificates of good standing any more. They will check your company’s status via the Internet.
  6. The Companies register is accessible via its Internet site. The information in companies’ registration files is freely accessible.

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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

We wish all our clients and prospect clients all the best. May the New Year 2008 brings a lot of joy and happiness to everyone. Happy New Year!

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Unconscientious Bulgarian workers take advantage of the British expats

The British community in Bulgaria expands very fast. Most of the family couples buy countryside houses in poor condition and usually major (re)construction works are necessary before one can live in such house. The new owners hire local construction workers to do the rebuild but do not realize that sometimes they can be taken advantage of.

The British (or any other) expats must keep in mind that each assigning of construction works should be in writing. This shall secure the owner of the house in case of any unconscientious actions taken by the worker. And even more, if any damages are caused by the worker, the owner may require not only a reimbursement, but even a penalty if agreed.

The owner should ask an English speaking  lawyer to draft an agreement if the construction works are at a great scale and therefore a lot of funds are invested. It is better the agreement to be drafted bilingual. This will ensure that each party understands its rights and obligations.

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Free access to Bulgarian legislation

The Bulgarian Parliament is now hearing a draft  law which stipulates that the Bulgarian State Gazette shall be published on the Internet. For the time being,  the State Gazette is published only on a hard copy which costs 0,80 Lev (approx. 0,40 EUR) per copy. The above fact is in collision with a principle stipulated in the Bulgarian Constitution: each Bulgarian citizen has the right to access state information in case not explicitly marked as classified.

Presently there are few companies which take advantage of the fact that State Gazette is not published online. They offer software applications which provide digitized copy of  all Bulgarian laws and thus making profit from information that should be public domain.

In case the draft law becomes law, each Bulgarian citizen will have free online access to the Bulgarian legislative database.

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Residence certificates for EU members’ citizens

  • 01.12.2007
    • , by 
  • by Milen Hristov
  •   1 Comments

Every citizen of an EU member state who wants to stay more than three months in Bulgaria has to notify the Migration Directorate for that stay. The latter issues a long-term residence certificate (“the Certificate”) and an Unique Citizen Number (“UCN”) is assigned to the foreigner.

Prior to Bulgaria’s accession to EU, ID cards were issued to every foreigner who resided for more than three months in the country. Now, as Bulgaria is an EU member state, the citizens of other EU countries don’t have to obtain such ID cards. They can use their own passports or ID cards. But in order to identify themselves before Bulgarian authorities (e.g. the Police Department, municipalities etc.) it is necessary that they have the Certificate.

Since very few of the clerks working in the state authorities can speak English or any other language except Bulgarian , it is necessary to identify yourself with the Certificate (which is written in Bulgarian).

The curious thing about that Certificate is that it does not look like a certificate at all. It is a rectangular, laminated, white sheet of paper measuring about 7cm x 5 cm with personal information details printed on it.

I think that Bulgaria’s accession to the EU kind of surprised the Bulgarian Ministry of Interior. I mean that the above mentioned certificates are being issued while at the same time:

  1. the Ministry of Interior hasn’t notified its clerks and the Police Departments about the existence of the Certificate, and
  2. the Certificate does not have the UCN printed on it

Therefore one can find himself/herself in pretty unusual situations: for instance a foreigner couldn’t prove his/her status in Bulgaria because the authorities still require the old ID cards issued to foreigners.

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