The Bulstat register act introduced the obligation for every foreign citizen who buys property for the first time in Republic of Bulgaria to record himself in a register in 7 days after the title deed is signed. That's no big deal if it was not for the obligation the buyer to state a correspondence address in Bulgaria. That means that in the future this will be the address to which every message, warning or summon addressed to the owner of the estate will be send by every Bulgarian state organ or by every private person. The date when these are received at this correspondence address will be considered the date the buyer have received the documents. The owner will be deemed notified whether he has actually received these or not. Even if nobody is found at this address, and subsequently even if the documents are returned to the sender and delivered to nobody, the documents will be still considered received by the buyer. As long as he has declared this apartment's address as correspondence address, documents will be so considered received by him even if has sold his apartment, but has not changed his correspondence address in the register.

All this is important as there might be instances when the owner could lose his property in Bulgaria if there's nobody at the place declared as correspondence address to receive his correspondence . Sometimes the time for reaction is 7 days (when for example there's a penal ordinance), in other instances more, but practically hardly anything really bad can happen if there's no reaction for – say - less than 6 months. Below I give you an extreme hypothesis of what might happen after these 6 months.

Suppose you don't know that you owe 20 Euro to the Bulgarian state, say from some unpaid tax, penal ordinance or the like. Or suppose that some Bulgarian clerk mistakenly thinks you owe it. He sends you a message to your apartment in Bulgaria as you have declared its address as your correspondence address. There's nobody there, so the message is returned to sender as nobody is found. Or there's some neighbor who receives it, but never informs you because he is absent minded or because he doesn't care. It doesn't matter why. What matters is that there's no reaction on your part about the order to pay the 20 Euro. You neither pay the sum nor appeal it and this way the term for the appealing is missed. The clerk then sends the unpaid order to the bailiff who in turn sends you a notice to pay the sum. Naturally he sends it to the same correspondence address as this is what you have written in his database. Again you don't receive the message and again in the eyes of the law you have received it. Meanwhile the 20 Euro have become 200 as expenses have been added. After you don't pay these 200 voluntarily, the bailiff has nothing to do, but to execute the order forcefully. His options here are limited. You don't receive your salary or pension in Bulgaria therefore he can't deduct the sum from these. So he has no alternative, but to look at your property and this means to sell your apartment. He warns you about it through sending a message to – guess where to? Yes, to your correspondence address. Again there's no payment, so he sells your 80 estate for 60 thousand Euro, he pays the state its 200 Euro and the 59 800 Euro minus the transfer expenses he deposits in a bank for you to take.

Why 60 instead of 80 thousand? There's no malice here. The price depends on how many buyers have learned about the selling. A bailiff simply can't spend months searching for the highest bidder. The same could happen with all your properties in Bulgaria, not just with the apartment declared as correspondence address. This might happen in a year, in ten years or never.

Again I have to stress that here I describe the worst possible scenario. Declaring the address of the property as correspondence address in Bulgaria is the usual thing done by the foreigners who buy property here but don't live at this address. And still nothing bad has happened. However part of my job is to anticipate problems.

The Bulstat regulations are actually analogous to similar norms in the western legislations. This is not some kind of Bulgarian exotics character. However serious this Bulstat issue might seem, there's an easy way out. The buyer (now owner) of the apartment, if he does not live in Bulgaria, might conclude a contract either with a lawyer or with somebody else who will receive the correspondence and take care of it.

An agent has no expertise to deal with such eventualities. However he has found the buyer and he wants to exploit this to the full. So the agent offers to take care of the address problem. He has no idea what it means, but he gives it a fancy name, something like: “aftercare program”. And he wants to charge a large sum for this care. If the buyer pays it, he cares, if not – he does not want the issue to be mentioned again. The least said about the problems, the more the buyers would be inclined to hire him. Thus an Irish agent was against the buyers to be „ frightened unnecessary” with the information I stated above. He told me specifically that I should not inform “his” clients about these dangers because – as he put it – “Frightening the crap out of clients is never a way to do business.” However it was my signature on the client's Bulstat registration and I was interested that the address issue is taken care of. I was not empowered to do it. That's why I warned the clients that they have to take care of their correspondence address. After this the agent never recommended me to anybody again.

I agree that frightening the clients is never a way to do business. However, if risks are not taken care of, I would rather spoil someone's mood than lose an apartment.

What happened next fully illustrates the situation on the property market. The clients who were warned by me… forwarded my warning to the agent.

They asked him what's going on: they have paid him a lot of money not to have problems. With a remark out of a low budged movie he reassured them that “everything is under control”. I still wonder: did he tell them this because he didn't understand the situation or because he was paid not to understand it? Anyway, the calmed down clients took no measures to rectify the problem. They believed the agent, not their attorney. They believed a third person, a well paid third person, but still a third person! And they believed what was convenient to believe.

In this situation there was nothing for me to do but to wash my hands. So I sent the same message to the same clients, this time with registered mail. Thus, if in future they sue me for problems arisen out of the correspondence address issue, I could prove that I have warned them.

This episode is indicative of a situation where everyone sleeps well. The agent is calm as he knows that he has signed nothing. The lawyer is calm as he knows that he has a case about what he has signed. And the client is calm as he has paid well the agent so that someone else worries about what has been signed. This situation has to end or else sooner or later developers, lawyers, buyers and even agents will all lose. Bulgarian property is really advantageous and it would be a pity if the western investors lose interest in it because of problems that could easily be avoided. However, in order these problems to be avoided, the western investors have to realize who they are dealing with when they not only hire property agents, but their lawyers as well. It does not matter whether you buy in Bansko or in Bourgas (Burgas), in Varna or in Slanchev Bryag (Slunchev Briag also known as Sunny Beach), in Gabrovo or in Vitosha, Veliko Turnovo or Golden Sands (Zlatni Piasatzi) or in other Black Sea seaside towns.

And it does not matter whether you buy one bed flat with living-room, dining-room, a bath or a house with kitchenette, a staircase, a garage, a balcony, a terrace and a fireplace with a kitchen and a stove, whether it’s cheap or expensive, whether it’s in the Rodopi mountain or on the Black sea seaside, with a yard or other land ownership.