| How to buy in Bulgaria
When buying in Bulgaria don’t behave like someone who enters a restaurant to have a snack. Ask for the rule-book, not for the menu and pick up the pen, not the fork! Buying property is not about having good time, but about reading dull texts.
Remember that prevention is easier than treatment. Don’t rely on the justice because (as the famous saying goes) justice is a process, not a result.
1. The first thing you must do is to have the preliminary contract examined by a lawyer. Remember, when you are signing a preliminary contract you are not buying a property but entering a contract that will hopefully lead to a purchase. The initial contract will almost certainly need to be changed. If the developer is not prepared to give satisfactory terms in the contract, you must withdraw and look elsewhere.
2. Don’t sign anything until your lawyer has approved it. Remember that the content of a title deed may be routine but there’s nothing routine about a preliminary contract. By the way the title of such a contract is irrelevant. It could be called ‘preliminary contract’ and still not be one or it could not be called ‘preliminary contract’ and still be one.
3. At the signing of the preliminary contract get copies of the developer’s title deed, the approved architectural plan of the floor your apartment is to be situated on, the building permit and the so called ‘Certificate of actual state of the developer’. It would be too much to ask to get originals however these should be at least stamped by the developer and they have to be compared to the originals.
4. Don’t pay any deposit or earnest or whatever until you’ve signed the preliminary contract. If you do you not only risk to lose this sum but (and this is more significant!) you are in the way of your lawyer negotiating a better preliminary contract.
5. Don’t sign anything until you have read it personally even if it’s approved by your lawyer. It’s not just that there are a lot of unqualified lawyers and that there are those who are dishonest, but lawyers make mistakes. Check personally all the details: from your names to the floorage of the building.
6. Be suspicious. To be suspicious is a virtue. But don’t forget that the more time you make your lawyer answer you e-mails, the more you are expected to pay. Ten e-mails is the limit of most lawyer’s patience if nothing extra is paid.
7. Make sure that your title deed is signed as early as possible even if the building is not finished yet because until it’s signed you own no property. Some people delay the signing because the finishing works are not done right assuming that if they sign it they will no longer be able to demand the proper finishing. There’s no correlation between the two. Become owner first then demand finishing. There’s only one instance when there’s no need to follow this point and it’s when 100% of the price is secured. Otherwise until your title deed is registered in the Property register you are not out of the danger zone yet.
8. In Bulgaria your lawyer is guarding your interest in your contractual relations with the developer at best. He’s not guarding your interest in your contractual relations with himself as he’s not representing yourself in this instance and besides you are not paying him to do this. So guard your own interest then! Ask questions, if you have preferences offer him clauses in order to oblige him to satisfy these preferences and above all: read everything, even the contract between you and the lawyer. Buyers tend to think that a lot of things are self-evident and need neither to be discussed, nor put in writing. Often that’s not the case for the other party. So be on the safest side, when in doubt ask for a particular text to be put in the contract.
9. Don’t use the lawyer provided or recommended by your agent or by the developer. The one who provides or who recommends is in position to influence and it’s never good idea your representative to have mixed loyalties. If someone offers you ‘all inclusive’ legal fees remember that there’s no such thing as a free lunch and that the only free cheese is the one in the mouse trap.
10. Make sure that your lawyer is indeed a lawyer.
11. Check where your lawyer was educated. There’s a big difference between the Sofia University and some obscure law faculty. This is a big problem in Bulgaria these days.
12. Remember that using an agent increases the risk of being stung. And if you have to use one, don’t rely on him to secure your purchase. Even if he cares, he doesn’t know these things. Remember that under BG law the developer may be liable and the lawyer may be liable, but you can never successfully sue your agent! Did I say that you could never successfully sue your agent? You can never successfully sue your agent. He acts accordingly to this reality.
13. Pay attention to the details yourself and don’t assume that your agent does. I’ve never seen an agent who can understand the details he’s supposed to check, nor have I seen an agent who cares about these more than to get the deal through as quickly as possible because he does not get paid unless you buy. Remember that under the BG law (unlike UK law) an agent is not liable if you lose your money. The Real Estate Agents operating in BG are ‘double agents’ because they are paid by both parties.
14. Remember that the better the agent’s computer animation, the more likely it is you to be disappointed. If you like computer animation, go to a movie, it'll be cheaper and safer.
15. Websites are just artificial fronts for organisations and their content should always be verified.
16. Pay attention not to computer graphics, to spoken word and to e-mails, but to what is printed, signed and stamped. Boring text is more important than computer animation.
17. Use securities at least for part of the sum you pay. Even securing 20 % is better than nothing.
18. If you buy without concluding a security agreement, at least buy from a developer that has a lot of assets. Remember that in BG a Ltd.’s capital could be as little as zero!
19. Make sure that – unless you live in BG the whole year - that at your correspondence address given in the Bulstat register there’s somebody to take care of or to forward to you the subpoenas and the notifications addressed to you if there are any.
20. If you buy an apartment or a house that does not exist at the time the preliminary contract is signed, include in it a clause about buying the so called ‘ownership of a building’ right (sometimes incorrectly translated as ‘building lease’)
21. Tie the stage payments to the building reaching a certain stage of completion and not to certain moment in time.
22. Print every e-mail you receive and send and make a photocopy of every document you send. Keep everything in a separate folder.
23. Make sure you pay the developer directly, preferably by bank transfer and not cash. The only money that should go to your lawyer is his fees and possibly taxes but definitely not your stage payments to the developer. This procedure helps cut out the possibility of your lawyer paying cash to the developer and under declaring the tax estimation price of your property and it reduces the risk that the money to be lost or stolen on the way and also makes it easy to prove that you've paid the seller.
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