Buying a Bulgarian property safely checklist

Here's a general outline of the process as described by one online estate agent.

I will see if there are any more tips elsewhere concerning the legal documents that a buyer needs to be given, receive a translation of. Etc such as original deeds, to make the transaction watertight.

I would hate to buy a property only to discover I haven't actually bought the house or that someone else is challenging the legality of my ownership / purchase of the property!

https://www.bulgarianproperties.com/pro … cedure.htm

STEP-BY-STEP BUYING PROCEDURE

▪ To begin with, browse through our website and find the property/properties which you like. After that contact the estate agent responsible for the listings and they will advise you on any issue related to buying a property in Bulgaria and will tell you what you want to know about Bulgaria. All this will help you navigate through the great number of offers on the site.

▪ Then choose the date of your viewing trip to Bulgaria so that you can see the properties you chose. We are always ready to help you organize your trip to Bulgaria.

For your convenience and due to travel restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic, we are able to organise virtual viewings online over Skype or other video chatting services. Contact the agent and request this service.

▪ In Bulgaria you will be met by one of our colleagues who will show you around the properties you wish to view, will answer all your questions and will help you choose.

After you have made your choice the purchase process starts. It consists of the following steps:

1. The chosen property needs to be reserved and taken off the market. After the unit is selected as a rule the buyer has to pay a deposit to the amount of 2,000 EUR. Only after that will the property be marked as reserved on the site and will be no longer available for sale.

2. After paying the deposit a preliminary agreement with the owner is signed within 30 days. The agreement settles the basic conditions which will later be copied to the Notary Deed. The conditions include a description of the property, the price, conditions and terms of payment, and for off-plan properties – the term for finishing the property.

3. Drawing up of the Notary Deed (Title Deed) which is considered the legal document certifying the ownership of the property. It is drawn up by the local notary public in the presence of the buyer and the seller.

4. The notary public certifies the deed and registers it with the Registry Agency and from that moment the ownership is transferred to the buyer.

5. Only for legal persons: a week after receiving the Notary Deed the lawyers of BULGARIAN PROPERTIES enter the legal person - buyer of the property - in the system of the Bulgarian National Statistics Institute. The property owner (legal person) will then receive a card with a unique number (EIK number) under which all issues related to the property will be accounted. The registration of the property in the tax office is automatic when the ownership is transferred.

PROPERTY TAXES AND OTHER EXPENSES

After buying a property in Bulgaria as an owner you must start paying annual property taxes. There are usually two property taxes to be paid: property tax and garbage collection, which are paid at the local municipality.

You will also have to pay their monthly utility bills.

If you bought a property in a gated development, you will also probably have to pay fees for security, maintenance, management, etc. called maintenance fee. It is paid annually in most of the vacation complexes and monthly in the cities.

The same agent also has an article on selling in Bulgaria, which makes interesting reading for buyers, too, as it shows many of the reasons there might be issues and the documents a buyer could reasonably expect to see: https://www.bulgarianproperties.com/Pro … _9619.html

Things like ensuring legal ownership and who has the right to sell (more people than just the one whose name is on the title deeds might have a claim to the property), ensuring the property is what you've been told it is, making sure there's no mortgage on the property or outstanding council tax or utility bills (you become responsible for any previous debts against the property when you buy)...

There are many ways to get scammed with properties in Bulgaria just like anywhere else. Just a few that I can think of:

• Overpaying. Many properties are put on the market for a price a local would not pay. Foreigners, not knowing the Bulgarian housing market, might fall for the high price. This used to be common some years back, properties had 2 prices: one for locals and the double price for foreigners.
• Falling for the ’buying property is an investment’ myth. We viewed a property for 40k€ in Sveti Vlas that British owners had bought a few years prior for 80k€. The building was lacking maintenance and was overpriced to begin with so prices fell.
• Service fee and maintenance. Despite a service fee, maintenance is not done properly and the building declines. I yet have to see an apartment complex that is being properly maintained and looks well after 5 to 10 years.
• Build quality. Often not so great. I have seen several buildings where the facade comes off after a few years and inside it is hollow…
• Square meters. Bulgarian builders exaggerate the actual square meters by as much as 50% or even more. Always measure the properties during a viewing.
• Paying anything over the land value minus demolition costs for the rural properties. These are, almost without exception, in such a miserable shape that only demolition is an option.
• After making a down payment the builder disappears and the money is gone. This happened to people we know recently. Always pay afterwards.

@GoingDutch

Very true.

Your comments on village houses only being worth land value depends on the condition. Many are really worthy only of demolition. Land value is a realistic price, though some are priced ridiculously higher and the owner will have a very very long wait to sell! Having building permission and utilities connected does have some value.

And then there's the ones that could be renovated, but need a lot of work. Some of us like old houses, a sense of continuity, even the quirkiness and impracticality for Westerners of old village style housing enough to put up with the poor building work and the challenges of renovation. I would hope to steward my old village house in a way that the previous owner, who lived there all her long life, would approve of.

The maintenance of apartments is definitely an issue. At one stage we were looking to buy an apartment as well as the village house. Estate agents show lovely photos of the exterior when the building was new, but after five or ten years the reality is likely to be sad and neglected. Especially coastal places with a pool.

There are many ways to get scammed with properties in Bulgaria just like anywhere else. Just a few that I can think of:
Overpaying. Many properties are put on the market for a price a local would not pay. Foreigners, not knowing the Bulgarian housing market, might fall for the high price. This used to be common some years back, properties had 2 prices: one for locals and the double price for foreigners.

That's nonsense, I'm sorry to say.  You're just assuming you know "what a local would pay"; for a start, many locals CAN'T pay a high price for a property, especially if in addition it needs significant renovation or carries an annual maintenance charge.  When an outsider buys a property, they are in essence pricing a local family out of somewhere to live; this is a common complaint in any country where "foreigners", be they "townies" looking for a second home in a country/seaside setting or people actually from another country, are snapping up property at "inflated" prices.  A buyer isn't "scammed" if they purchase something at a price that someone else wouldn't/couldn't afford to pay: no-one's forced to buy anything and the value of an object is at least partly subjective; if Tracey Emin's unwashed and unmade bed appeals to you as a "piece of art" then its increase in value from $200,000 in 2000 to nearly $4 million 14 years later is perfectly acceptable. If I see a house that appeals to me, then to me it's worth whatever I'm prepared to pay for it, even if "a local person" might only be willing to pay half of that.

As an example, I recently sold my house in the UK: someone made me an offer which I told the estate agent I was willing to accept; while I was waiting for the person who made the offer to agree to proceed, someone else made me a considerably higher offer, which I of course accepted and the sale went through at that price.  Did I "scam" the eventual buyer?  Of course I didn't - they were happy with what they paid for my property, and so was I; the fact that someone else could have bought it for quite a bit less if they'd moved more quickly is totally immaterial.

Falling for the ’buying property is an investment’ myth. We viewed a property for 40k€ in Sveti Vlas that British owners had bought a few years prior for 80k€. The building was lacking maintenance and was overpriced to begin with so prices fell.

Buying property IS an investment, not a myth!  The value of an investment can go up or down - that doesn't mean that it wasn't an investment if it drops, it was just an unwise investment.  They saved paying rent for however many years they owned the property and the fact that they wouldn't/couldn't hold onto their investment for however much longer it might take for it to rise in value to what they paid for it doesn't affect the basis of how property investment works.

Service fee and maintenance. Despite a service fee, maintenance is not done properly and the building declines. I yet have to see an apartment complex that is being properly maintained and looks well after 5 to 10 years.

Keep looking, there are plenty of examples of complexes that are fine decades after being built.  We lived in one, and made a tidy profit when we sold it to boot....

Build quality. Often not so great. I have seen several buildings where the facade comes off after a few years and inside it is hollow…

That happens everywhere - but you can't extend the fact that there are some examples of poor building quality to every property in the country.  Sometimes properties are built to a price - not everyone can afford a million-euro apartment, or a million-euro car...you know the old adage: Buy cheap, buy twice.

Square meters. Bulgarian builders exaggerate the actual square meters by as much as 50% or even more. Always measure the properties during a viewing.

The area of an apartment includes the balconies, any storage areas AND the "ideal parts", ie the share of the common areas of the building and grounds. Exactly what you're getting is specified in the Notary Act, which includes a skitsa (plan) so there's no scope for "exaggeration".

Paying anything over the land value minus demolition costs for the rural properties. These are, almost without exception, in such a miserable shape that only demolition is an option.

If you buy a ruin, you get a ruin - but you also get a plot of "regulated" land together with the ability to erect a new building with the same footprint without needing additional planning permission.  You pay only what that property is worth to you, so if you're ripped off, you've done it to yourself.

After making a down payment the builder disappears and the money is gone. This happened to people we know recently. Always pay afterwards.
   
Buying off-plan is a risk in any country - the possibility of bankrupt/disappearing "investors" is a danger everywhere, but you have to understand that you're speculating when you buy like this.  If it pays off, the completed properties in the project are usually already worth more than you paid for yours - but it isn't a gamble if the only possibility is a win.  A buyer has to be very naive, to put it politely, if they don't do their due diligence when they pay out money on a property that only exists on paper, especially if it's money they can't afford to lose....
   

About buying off plan - last month I shared a taxi at Sofia Airport with a young Thai man also travelling back to the UK. He's been working hard in the UK for years, living frugally, and saving as much money as he could to invest and send home. He purchased an off-plan apartment in Sofia back in 2019 because he wanted to invest in property but couldn't afford to buy anything at all anywhere in Britain, or in any EU capital besides Sofia.

Covid arrived, building stopped, he heard nothing more. He thought he'd lost his money and wrote it off mentally as a bad buy and something to never try again. His mother back in Thailand was very "I told you so", as she'd tried to discourage him from a risky investment. He felt he'd investigated the company and found nothing concerning, they had a good record for completed projects, but was philosophical enough to accept that losses do happen, even though for him this was a large loss, several years worth of savings.

Then he got a call this year saying his apartment was completed to Bulgarian standard. He flew over to inspect it and told me he was delighted with the apartment and the build quality, especially as the other apartments in the building he invested 30,000 EUR in are now selling for over 150,000 EUR. (I saw the apartments listed for sale on a well-know Bulgarian real estate site, and they looked very nice). He now intends to fit out and furnish the apartment and either rent it out or sell it on.

So it's a gamble, and like all gambles there are winners and losers. I was so pleased for this young guy that his gamble paid off.