In order to acquire land or property as a non-Bulgarian citizen, one must first form a Bulgarian company. Registration of the Bulgarian company can be done from another country before arranging a viewing trip, but it costs more money as all the documents have to be signed in front of a public notary and then submitted to your country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. You may also encounter some problems as some of the public officials are “unaware” of this procedure! The first step is to register the name of your Bulgarian company with Bulstat (National Statistical Office of Bulgaria). This is a simple procedure. From there, the documents are created in both Bulgarian and English.
This translation must bear the stamp of a sworn translator and a Bulgarian notary. 2500 euros must be deposited in a temporary bank account to prove that the required capital of the company has been paid up. The 2500 euros can be withdrawn right after registering your bank account. The documents are then submitted to the company’s district court. After approx. 10 working days, the court decision is made and the company must then be registered with the local tax and insurance offices and a provisional BULSTAT NUMBER assigned.
In the next step, an official business account is opened at any bank and this must then also be registered with the above-mentioned authorities. After 1 month the OFFICIAL BULSTAT CARD is ready for collection. Plots can be purchased after obtaining the court decision and before obtaining the official BULSTAT card. When the client selects a property, a preliminary contract is signed by both the buyer and the seller in front of a public notary. Upon signing this preliminary contract, 10% of the agreed sales price will be paid to the seller. By entering into this contract, the seller agrees to sell you their property and you agree to buy their property.
If you decide not to buy the property you will lose your initial 10% deposit and the seller may start legal proceedings against you. If the seller decides not to sell, they must refund you the deposit plus the associated costs. The documents will be handed over as soon as the seller has received the full amount. This can be done in 1 business day depending on how the money is transferred and all required documents from the seller are correct. Before selecting your property, due diligence should be carried out with the local municipality to ensure that all owners (there may be multiple owners) of the property agree to the sale.
The above procedure is time consuming due to lack of customer care in the public offices and unmotivated public officials. It involves hours of queuing followed by annoying language difficulties. It is possible and legal to try all of this yourself as a foreigner, but not recommended. Once the title deeds have been transferred and you have all your property and company documents in your possession, you will be required to submit your company accounts once a year. This currently means until March 1st. If your company does little or no business, it should cost very little for an accountant to file these for you. Because the property belongs to your company and not to you as an individual, you do not have to pay personal income tax in your home country if you decide to rent out the premises. Instead, your company has to pay the tax in Bulgaria. For more information on incorporating a Bulgarian company please contact Shamrock Consultancy Services (Irl-UK-Bg)
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