Terms of purchase at Solna 59

How the transaction runs

A purchase at Solna 59 runs in three steps: a reservation, a preliminary contract and the notarial deed. The deposit under art. 93 of the Obligations and Contracts Act works both ways — if the buyer walks away the seller keeps it, and if the seller walks away he returns it twofold. The preliminary contract under art. 19 is made in simple written form, needs no notary, and protects more strongly than it looks: under para. 3 either party may ask the court to conclude the final contract, and the judgment in force replaces the notarial deed. The deed for Solna 59 is signed once the building has reached the stage of a completed structural shell: before that, under art. 181 of the Spatial Development Act, only the right to build can be transferred.

Documents and timing

At the notary a transaction for Solna 59 takes half an hour to an hour, while the whole way from deposit to deed on the Bulgarian market fits into six to ten weeks — the time goes on the paperwork. Under art. 586 of the Civil Procedure Code the notary must verify that the seller really is the owner, and assembles a file: the seller’s title, the cadastral sketch or scheme, the tax valuation certificate, an encumbrances certificate, the seller company’s current status, the building permit with the approved design, and the structural-shell protocol. Pomorie municipality issues the tax valuation in five working days, or three or one at a higher fee; the encumbrances certificate is valid for a limited time, so it is taken last.

What the deed records

The deed gives a buyer at Solna 59 a self-contained unit — an apartment or a retail unit — together with ideal parts of the building’s common parts; for apartment no. 6 that is 60.25 m² of its own area plus 13.65 m² of common parts, 76.79 m² in the deed. Ownership passes at the moment the deed is signed, not on registration: art. 24(1) of the Obligations and Contracts Act says so. Registration at the Registry Agency serves a different purpose — under art. 113 of the Property Act, until then the deed cannot be set up against a third party who bought and registered rights over the same property earlier, which is why the notary files it the same day. The sale of a new building by a Bulgarian company carries 20 % VAT — not the seller’s choice but § 1.5 of the supplementary provisions of the VAT Act and art. 45(5). At Solna 59 the tax is already in the price: apartments and retail units are quoted with VAT, and the preliminary contract states this on a separate line.

Completion and warranties

Solna 59 is put into service not by an Act 16 but by a certificate from the chief architect of Pomorie municipality, issued within seven days. That is because a two-storey building up to ten metres high falls in the fifth category under art. 137 of the Spatial Development Act, and for the fourth and fifth categories art. 177(3) prescribes exactly this certificate, whereas an Act 16 is drawn up by a state acceptance committee and only for the first three categories. Promises to «hand over with Act 16» on such buildings are a mistake, and we do not repeat it. From that same day the warranty periods under art. 20 of Ordinance No. 2 begin to run: ten years on the structure together with the ground beneath it, eight on the utility networks, five on the water-, heat- and sound-proofing and five on the finishes and internal installations.

Buyers from abroad

A foreigner buys an apartment or a retail unit at Solna 59 exactly as a Bulgarian does: citizenship makes no difference, because the object of the sale is the building, not the land. A citizen of a country outside the European Union may not own land in Bulgaria directly — art. 22 of the Constitution and art. 29 of the Property Act — so in their deed the share of the plot is replaced by ideal parts of the common parts of the building and the right to build. For an apartment or a shop this changes nothing; a parking space at Solna 59, however, is legally a share of land, and such a buyer takes it through a Bulgarian company: registering an EOOD costs 28.12 € online with share capital of one euro. A foreigner’s personal number is not needed for the transaction itself — art. 6 of the Registration Rules and art. 580(3) of the Civil Procedure Code accept a passport plus place and date of birth.

Buying without travelling

A purchase at Solna 59 can be completed by power of attorney without coming to Bulgaria, and for buyers from Russia and Ukraine no apostille on that power of attorney is required. The exemption from legalisation comes from the bilateral legal-assistance treaties in force — with the USSR of 19 February 1975, art. 12, and with Ukraine of 21 May 2004, art. 17; both appear on the official list of the Bulgarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The document needs only a translation into Bulgarian and certification of that translation. The cleanest route is to sign the power of attorney at a Bulgarian consulate: under art. 84 of the Notaries Act the consul certifies both the signature and the content, and then neither apostille nor translation is needed. For Kazakhstan, Türkiye and the United Kingdom an apostille is compulsory. If the buyer comes in person and does not speak Bulgarian, an interpreter is mandatory at signing: under art. 582 of the Civil Procedure Code the notarial act is void without one (art. 576), and we always provide the interpreter.

Costs on top of the price

On top of the price a buyer at Solna 59 pays the local acquisition tax — in Pomorie municipality 3 % of the value under art. 35(2) of Ordinance No. 8 — plus the notary fee and the registration fee. Settlement is by bank transfer: cash payments in Bulgaria are capped at 5,112.92 €, above which only transfers are allowed, under art. 3 of the Act on Limiting Cash Payments. After the purchase the owner in Pomorie pays an annual property tax of 4.0 ‰ of the assessed value under art. 15(1) of the same ordinance and a waste collection fee under art. 20 of Ordinance No. 11: 3.15 ‰ for dwellings and 6.7 ‰ for non-residential premises. The annual tax and fee are calculated not from the sale price but from the assessed value issued by the municipality, which is normally lower. The transaction costs come to roughly 3.4–3.9 % of the price: about 3 % is the local tax, the rest is the notary fee and registration.

The first days after the deal

A buyer at Solna 59 without a Bulgarian personal number has a seven-day deadline: under art. 3(1)(10)(b) and art. 12 of the BULSTAT Register Act a foreign individual who has become the owner of real estate must register in BULSTAT, and the period runs from the day of purchase. Then come transferring the water and electricity accounts into your name and filing the waste-fee declaration with Pomorie municipality within two months; an individual files no tax return for the property itself, as the notary sends the data to the municipality. We hand this list over in writing together with a copy of the deed, so that no deadline is missed.