Building a wall around house

https://law.advokatonline.eu/building-p … -bulgaria/

@H Williams

It seems to be more of a cultural thing in some area and not in others. You'll probably see a pattern of regional variation as you look at online property sites.

We first started looking in VT region and there, most village houses have the high solid walls, often adobe bricks topped with tiles. Where we ended up buying, in Dobrich region, lower brick or stone walls topped with wire mesh are the norm and it's rare to see places with high solid boundary walls. It's probably best not to make significant changes that are very different to the properties around you, unless you know for sure the neighbours will be fine with it.

Thank you both!

@H Williams

Boundary walls is very typical here. I didn't even realize what I was missing until we arrived in Bulgaria... but it's very nice having our own private space behind our garden walls.

I would say if you like and want boundary walls, you should try to find a house that has this already, ideally in decent condition. That's because, like all aspects of house renovation, building a wall can now be quite an expensive piece of work (depending on the size of the garden, obviously).

Many of the newer walls in our village are not full height walls, from a cost saving perspective, I suspect. They build a low concrete foundation wall (usually with some concrete posts/blocks at intervals), and then attach some kind of fencing on top. Not quite as private, but can look pretty good, and you can always plant a hedge/trees behind for extra privacy.

I think of Bulgaria as the "live free or die" country. There are (probably) fewer regulation and (definitely) less money to spend on inspectors and enforcement. The impression I get is that you can pretty much do what you want with your house and garden without seeking any permissions. It's probably more controlled in a big city, but for most village houses I suspect this is the case.

I'd guess you'd be fine with building border walls, putting a new roof, planting/cutting trees in your garden, changing the external look of your house (uPVC windows, insulation, render, paint, wall tiles, raising the roof), pretty much any internal renovation, laying new paths/terraces, putting in a new septic, upgrading your plumbing and wiring, putting in some kind of storage shed/garage/garden office.

We've done a ton of stuff at our house, and there's still a huge amount to do. I think village houses need you to keep working on them for ever, until you drop dead or give up and relocate to a low-maintenance flat somewhere. :-) I've definitely done a bunch of things that would have got me into big trouble back in the UK, but nobody's bothered me here.

The lowish boundary walls are actually due to the laws here: you need permission to build one higher than 1.5 metres, but topping a compliant wall with metal posts/rebar and chicken wire etc doesn't count. Of course, some people ignore the law, or feign ignorance, and get away with it - but it just takes a minor spat with the neighbours for such things to suddenly come to the attention of the authorities....

As the goody two shoes that I am, I would probably end up asking permission for it all properly. Too chicken to build a whole wall without it. Though the other little things in the garden, probably not.

Cheers for all the info guys!

@H Williams It's mostly foreigners that do that. I wanted to be able to greet my neighbors as they passed by so I did what the locals do in my neck of the woods, which is a low stone wall with metal (sometimes decorative) see through fencing on top.  Does your property have any existing wall at the property edge?

@Judith Green

I'm currently just searching for property. Some that I've liked have had none at all and others stone with the metal wire. The ones I can't afford have had the high rendered walls and I thought they looked very neat and liked the look so thought I'd ask about the rules.

Another reason was, I was worried about wild animals, so wanted to be safe and safe for my pets too. I'm probably over worried since I'm not used to anything trying to eat me in the UK!

It really does depend what area you're looking in whether houses with existing walls are available at a decent price or not. In some areas it would be unusual to find a village house without one. Building a solid fence for the entire perimeter could work out very expensive, so if it's important to you to have that, look in the right areas and keep looking, and you'll find something.

Our area this is not the norm. We originally wanted the high wall, too, plenty of privacy, but find what we have works fine for us. Our main house front area has a pretty front fence, with solid pillars and iron panels. I really like it! One side and the  back house block fences are stone or brick to knee high, then wire. The other side, bordering the neighbour's chicken run, is just wire. The back yard has good privacy naturally. The front has zero privacy, but as Judy says, it's nice to be able to see neighbours and chat with people. We've met some lovely people that way!

The lower walls with wire tops can be made wild animal resistant, but will need frequent maintenance. The biggest problems we've had at our place is some of the local cats pushing up the wire, making short cuts to get to the cat food hubby insists on leaving out.  I feed the strays and the mother cats and kittens, but only put down what they will eat at the time then pick up the bowls. It's owned cats that are the problem! I need to go around and do a lot of repairs there. The mesh is in good condition but the wire securing the mesh in place is old and rusted through and needs replacing.

In some areas stray dogs, foxes, and even jackals might be a problem, but I think the biggest animal threats to pets are probably other humans, ticks, and snakes.

I wouldn't worry too much about wild animals eating you or your pets: we live on the edge of a forest on the skirts of a major mountain and have a fox who regularly visits to steal the food left out for feral cats; he/she (or maybe "they") is usually sent scurrying away by the much smaller cats - fortunately, the cats can't manage dog biscuits, so the fox(es) still get a free meal whenever they want. From the road kill, it seems that there's a pretty big population of them here.  We even had a bear spotted recently, just a couple of hundred metres from our house! 

The main dangers to pets here are from street dogs, idiots with guns, poison, ticks and infectious diseases.  FIV, in particular, is rife here in BG, so if you have cats you would be well advised to keep them indoors

Ah that's good to know about diseases. Luckily our 3 cats are all indoor ones.

What we have here is a closed off cat run outside connected to the window that we would probably replicate there, keeps them safe and makes me feel better giving them a little extra freedom in the sunshine. We understand cats can be quite the pests, so we find it best to keep them in and not irritating neighbours, or run over.

Our dogs are also controlled and we would also do the same there, no running free and causing mayhem! Good reason for a good strong wall, or Houdini might escape. She would also probably keep any stray cats away, loves to chase them but is good with our own cats.

I'll keep a good look out property-wise, see which areas fit us and the pets well. One day I might find just the one!

@H Williams

Well, I thought I was a goody two shoes too. And in the UK (and USA, Germany, and many more) you kinda don't even think about not being so, as there are real penalties for playing fast and loose with the building regs. But here it just seems to be a very different in terms of what you can do with your little village castle. My view was "when in Rome..." and that has served me fine here. Moreover, having figured out what the Romans were getting away, I really wondered why I should be the only stickler in the village who insisted on doing things the long-winded, formal (and usually far more expensive) British way. :-)

I reckon it's best to be good to your neighbours, as my experience of Bulgarians is that they can be exceptionally nice and helpful. And they will certainly share what they would do if faced with the same project in their property.

It makes me wonder, with the thought of people with guns.

My largest dog is a Tamaskan, made to look like a wolf. Would I be putting her at risk of being shot by someone who thins she's an actual wolf?

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@H Williams

The problem is more the mixture of neighbours with airguns and cats. Dogs are more likely to get poisoned. It pays to be wary: you may have no problems, or you may be on the receiving end of poisoned meatballs flying over the garden wall.

@JimJreally? is this common?

I lived in south of france for many years, there was poison put down in dog walking areas, is nowhere 'safe'?

    @JimJreally? is this common?
   

    -@buckleyps

We've discussed it in this forum before: some people will assure that everything's rosy in the garden while others, such as yours truly, read the Bulgarian press and belong to social media groups where people regularly report that their pets have been deliberately poisoned.  You can choose whether you're blinkered or cautious, but I certainly don't take chances with the lives of the furry members of my family.  As I've mentioned before, two of my cats were shot with an airgun by one of the neighbours - fortunately they survived but had to live with the slugs inside them, and even more fortunately for everyone, I don't know who it was.  Pets have been poisoned in the village where we have another house, and likewise our friends who live in another village have had several of theirs poisoned (not to mention a neighbour stabbed to death during a major fracas with the local gipsy population).

BG is far from being Shangri-la, I'm afraid.

    I lived in south of france for many years, there was poison put down in dog walking areas, is nowhere 'safe'?
   

    -@buckleyps

Me too, but I only saw the odd hiker where I was, so no poison.  Animals WERE killed, but that involved yours truly and the local sanglier population - and very tasty they were too....

@buckleyps

I would say, based on what I've heard/seen, that it's not "common" here.

As a ballpark, it's definitely not as good as the UK, but far better than Cyprus (where we lived for some years), where indiscriminate poisoning of cats and dogs was quite common, even on public open areas, rather than specific to a particular home/pet. And with a particularly unpleasant poison which is banned elsewhere.

In our village, nobody mentioned the local pet poisonings, and one of my neighbours allowed his farm dogs to trot around the village unsupervised. My other neighbour has a VERY annoying dog who barks almost constantly (nearly all day, and most of the night). To be fair, not the dog's fault, as he's chained up 24/7, and many countries would have the owner hauled in for pet abuse. But loud and annoying (on the barky dog scale he was a 9 or 10) and kept me awake until the early hours.

The fact that the trotters and the barker are still alive, 5 years later, is a pretty good sign from a (no) poisoning perspective. What did happen is that my other neighbours got sufficiently ticked off (after a few years) that they went round and had a quiet but forceful word with the owner, and insisted he relocate his dog. He's now at the furthest point of the smallholding, and he's in with the cows so he's got company. He still barks like a maniac, but he's further away with a barn in-between us. And I installed roller shutters to reduce sound and light and help us sleep better.