Hi,

I have been looking at this forum over the last few days as I am in the early stages of scoping out a property to buy in Bulgaria.

This might seem a bit dumb, but I understand that you have to set up a company to hold land ownership. I am looking to buy an apartment in Bansko (probably off plan) - can I assume that these are generally offered leasehold, thus avoiding this requirement ?

Secondly, on none of the websites does it mention the term of the lease etc -am I missing something, or are these properties actually freehold ? ( I can't be specific about the property, but there are dozens for sale on the internet and they all seem to be similar in this regard).

Any guidance would be appreciated.

Hi searcher,
I've just joined and it seems like nobody else has answered your questions so I'll give you my two pence.

a) As I understand it there is no concept of leasehold in Bulgaria, the apartments you are looking at will be under bulgarian law, a form of freehold. Because you cannot own land as a non bulgarian individual, you can buy an apartment because someone else (typically the developer) owns the land its built on. In a very basic way its most like the concept of flying freehold that we have under British law. You dont get the same full rights that you do with freehold property here, but for all intents and purposes the concept is similar. I am not a solicitor, and you shoud get your bilingual independant solicitor to explain it to you in greater length!
b) hence no length of lease
c) your questions are by no means dumb. take as much advice as you can before taking the plunge. After 12 years of selling property I'm still amazed at the amount of people who are happy to sign on the dotted line without doing their homework.
have fun, Bansko's a great place, I was there before christmas and the snow, slopes and apres ski were great!

best wishes

Andrew

Thanks very much Andrew, appreciate it.

Nice website btw.