Legal Blog

Paid health insurance (NHS) contributions will be required upon selling personal property

Restriction to selling property and vehicles A bill, adding new bureaucracy requirements to selling property, has been voted on first hearing in the Bulgarian Parliament. The amendments to the Health Insurance Act and Tax and Insurance Proceedings Code set a requirement that the seller of a real estate property and/or vehicles needs to present to the notary public a certificate from the National Revenue Agency, proving that all outstanding NHS contributions have been paid.

Trade Register not working in crucial moment

The deadline for announcing the company financial reports on the Trade Register reports will be over in 3 days. As usual, the Registry Agency is not prepared for the massive load of application that will follow. Not that they didn’t expect it. It’s the third year of the obligation for announcing the company annual financial reports, so the Agency apparently has a real short memory not to remember the bad experience from last year and the year before.

Buying Bulgarian property on Ebay

Bulgarian property on Ebay is cheap Yes, this is why Britons buy Bulgarian rural properties on Ebay - because is insanely cheap. One can get a rural house with 2000-3000 sq.m. land for about GBP 2000. Of course the latter would require huge renovation, as it is often a mud brick house in the middle of nowhere. These properties are preferred by either retired couples who want to spend their retirement years where their state pension will be enough to have a normal life, or by entrepreneurs who buy wrecks, renovate them and sell them for double or triple the initial purchase price.

Condominium General Meetings in Aparthotels

One of the hottest topics in all Bulgarian ski and sea resorts is the problem of maintenance and management of the condominium. At the time the apartment complexes were build, marketed and sold, no one told the buyers how would their condominium investment be managed and maintained actually. Many were mislead. The Specifics of Condominium The truth is that the complexes consist of separate buildings, which according to Condominium Ownership Management Act (COMA), need to be managed and maintained separately.

Liquidation of the unreregistered companies. What's the hurry?

Once again, the Ministry of Justice proves to be existing in some other legal realm. So are the Bulgarian Courts. As you probably already know, the companies which have not re-registered by 31 Dec 2011 are subject to compulsory liquidation. The proceedings of this liquidation have been “patched” to the Trade Register Act just before the deadline was in effect. Naturally, as everything done in the last minute, this seems to be an unfinished work.

Changed construction plans for already sold offplan property

I don’t know what the builders are thinking when they change the construction plans and don’t update all off-plan purchase agreements? Imagine the following situation. You have bought a relatively cheap apartment in an off-plan development.The estate agent have shown you some fancy 3D graphics of how the building would look like. Nice gardening around, happy people walking on nice alleys. The reality is slightly different. Builder didn’t have any experience, hasn’t done any legal/technical research but have started selling off-plan.

Farmland the new trap set by the government

New amendments were introduced to the Ownership and Use of Agricultural Land Act on 27 March 2012. All agricultural land owners or lessees are now obliged by 31 July each year to submit declarations to the local offices of the Agriculture Municipal Service. The declarations need to point out how the farmland they own or use will be used. Art 37b. (1) Each owner shall submit a declaration form in the local Agricultural Municipality Service, where the land is located.

Forging distribution of common areas in apartment complexes

We have been warning apartment owners that developers use incorrect calculation of common parts, in order to gain majority in the condominium General Meetings. Thus they set their own decisions about which will be the maintenance company and how much that maintenance company will be paid. It’s out of question that they form their own maintenance companies and get the maintenance fees. For the past year we have been fighting such developer in Bansko.

Buying regulated land in Bulgaria 2012

Because of the speculations, I decided to write this small post. I will try to clear out whether an EU citizen can buy regulated land directly in Bulgaria as from January 2012. A common misunderstanding is that foreigners cannot buy regulated land directly if they own primary home in their native country. This was valid until 2012, but not any more. The legal grounds are Art. 29a of the Ownership Act:

Full text of the Condominium Management Act

Many people wanted to see the full text of the Condominium Management Act 2011 in English. This is particularly useful for all foreigners who have bought holiday apartments in Bansko, Pamporovo, Borovetz and the Black Sea resorts. The Act can be downloaded from here [PDF 178kb].