notary informtion

The Notary is a public official, a lawyer, sometimes  local judge, whose role is to ensure the property deeds are in order and the vendor and purchaser are who they claim to be. He is not responsible for ensuring the legality of the property, that is the role of the purchaser's solicitor and then only if he has been instructed to check it. the notary must ensure that all parties fully understand the contract and if that means an interpreter is necessary he should insist that one is present. My concern with that process is that many interpreters in Bulgaria, while having a grammatical understanding of English do not have sufficient command of the language to translate the contents of a deed in a way in which a purchaser understands the full implications of the contents.

Most property transactions in Bulgaria proceed perfectly satisfactorily but there are many examples of people regretting their purchase because they did not fully understand what they were taking on. Friends of mine own a property, bought on-line, where the notary passed the documents with no delay or hesitation. It was only afterwards that they discovered the next door neighbour is currently using part of their land as a yard and there is even doubt about whether the next door neighbour's house is partly on their land.

Before the end of this year Bulgarian legislation requires that all apartments have a technical passport. The legislation apples to all houses by the end of 2016. Because the legislation does not apply until 31st December 2014 there is no requirement of vendors to produce a technical passport nor on a notary to look for one. I have had a quotation of between 6000 BGN and 10,000 BGN from an accredited expert to prepare such a passport for a house of 100 msq with land of 1000 msq. which makes the technical passport more expensive than the house.

It is essential that you see the plan of the whole property and that you relate the plan to the boundaries which you see onsite. All of the buildings onsite must show on the plan in the positions shown on the plan. Buildings built before 1987 must have a deemed planning consent; after 1987 and before 2001 must have planning consent and after 2001 must have a habitation certificate (AKT16).

There was a time people took the view that buying property in Bulgaria was a risk worth taking because it is, in Western European terms, very cheap, these days are past. Once the Notary Deed is signed the new owner is responsible for everything to do with the property, including old debts and liabilities. It would be entirely possible for a vendor who lives in Western Europe to have the judgement of a Bulgarian court enforced by another European Court and thus place at risk the assets of the owner of a Bulgarian property in that other country. Look at similar cases in Cyprus where people are facing bankruptcy.

thanks for your reply very useful