Romania's Government plans to get 1 billion euros by selling the land serving nationalised houses

The Government prepared a project that will secure 4 billion lei – approximately one billion euros: property owners, who have bought nationalised houses, using the law 112/1995, will now have to buy the plots of land as well, since the land is currently owned by local councils, Romanian press agency Mediafax informs.

„The tenants, who have bought or are buying the flat’s ownership, will buy from local administration authorities the land serving the flat. Where the property is made up by several flats, the common space serving them will also have to be bought”, the project shows. The document also indicates that the inheritors or other buyers will obey the tenants’ duties.

The price for the land will be considered according to current market prices, based on an evaluation report. The evaluation will be carried out by specialists hired by the ones selling the land: the local councils and the General Council of Bucharest County. The lands that are currently involved in administrative or judicial claims will not be sold.

One billion euros

„In the current crises, selling these lands represents an income which could balance the local administrations’ budgets. The procedure has been debated at a political level and it has been decided that it would be introduced in the anti-crisis programme, to increase the budget incomes”, sources from one minister declared.

The Government estimates that the finding will bring four billion lei (approximately 1 billion euros) to local budgets, out of which 3 billion lei already in 2010.

Right or duty?

National Authority for Property Return (ANRP) representatives said that the project has not been yet sent to them for further analysis and observations. But they underline that the text indicated that the „owners are complied” to buy the land. They also said that a contract between a buyer and a seller is sealed with both sided consenting to it, except when the law says otherwise.

They have explained that they cannot say whether the law draft is meant to give the owners the right to buy the land or forces them to do so, because they do not know the reasons behind the project.

The law 112/1995 allowed ex-owners to receive through retrocession the properties that have been nationalised by the state after March 6, 1945. The properties that have not been given back in nature to their previous owners were bought by tenants. But the land serving the properties are still owned by local councils, despite the fact that the home-owners are allowed to use it.