Property and Real Estate in Romania

If you’re about to buy or sell a house, a flat or a plot of land, I think it’s worth going through the documents with a real estate lawyer before you see the notary. I check the property and help you defend your ownership when problems come up: hidden defects, eviction by a third party, neighbours, co-owners, wrong entries in the land register. I work in Cluj with individuals and companies, from the checks before the preliminary sale agreement (antecontract) to cases at the Cluj-Napoca District Court (Judecătoria Cluj-Napoca).

In my experience, property is the part of civil law where a check made in time saves you a lot of worry.

What should you check before buying a flat or land?

Under the Civil Code, the land register describes properties and shows the real rights (drepturi reale) over them (art. 876), and registered rights are acquired, changed and extinguished only in line with the land register rules (art. 877). That’s why the first check is the land register extract: the registered owner, mortgages, encumbrances, and any notes of pending disputes or preliminary sale agreements. Next come the seller’s title deeds, the tax status of the property and, for land, the urban planning certificate (certificat de urbanism).

By law, the seller gives you a warranty against eviction (evicțiune), meaning claims by a third party based on a right that arose before the sale and that you weren’t told about (art. 1.695), and against hidden defects (art. 1.707).

The preliminary sale agreement and signing at the notary

The preliminary sale agreement sets out the property, the price and the signing date, and it must contain all the clauses without which the parties couldn’t perform the promise (art. 1.279(1) of the Civil Code). It doesn’t need notarial form. If one party refuses without good reason to conclude the promised contract, the other can ask the court for a judgment that takes the place of the contract, within 6 months of the date the contract should have been concluded (art. 1.669(1) and (2)). There’s more about preliminary sale agreements on the civil contracts page.

Hidden defects in a flat or house: what can you claim, and how quickly?

The seller gives a warranty against hidden defects (vicii ascunse) that make the property unfit for use or reduce its value so much that you wouldn’t have bought it, or would have paid less (art. 1.707(1) of the Civil Code). A defect is hidden if a prudent and diligent buyer couldn’t have discovered it at handover without professional help (art. 1.707(2)), and it must have existed at handover (art. 1.707(3)). A clause excluding the warranty is void for defects the seller knew or should have known about (art. 1.708(2)).

Depending on the case, you can have the defects removed at the seller’s expense, have the item replaced, get a price reduction or have the sale rescinded (art. 1.710), plus damages if the seller knew about the defects (art. 1.712). The deadlines matter:

Different rules apply to defects in a rented property; you’ll find them in the guide to the lease contract (in Romanian).

Acquisitive prescription: 10 years, 5 years or 30 years?

Acquisitive prescription (uzucapiune) means acquiring ownership of a property through long possession. The Civil Code provides for two forms:

• extra-tabular acquisitive prescription (uzucapiune extratabulară, art. 930): after 10 years of possession, if the owner registered in the land register has died or ceased to exist, if a declaration renouncing ownership has been registered, or if the property wasn’t registered in any land register;
• tabular acquisitive prescription (uzucapiune tabulară, art. 931): the rights of a person registered as owner without a legitimate cause can no longer be challenged after 5 years of possession free of defects, if they were in good faith both when the application for registration was filed and when they took possession.

These rules apply only to possession that began after the Civil Code came into force, on 1 October 2011. For possession that began earlier, the law in force when it began applies, and for properties without an open land register, the 1864 Civil Code (art. 82(1) of Law no. 71/2011), with its 30-year acquisitive prescription (art. 1890 of the 1864 Civil Code). Under the Code of Civil Procedure (Codul de procedură civilă), the application to register a right acquired by acquisitive prescription is filed with the district court for the area where the property is, together with the certificates, the cadastral documentation and the witnesses the law requires (art. 1.051). The court orders a summons to be issued and posted, and anyone with an interest can object within 6 months of the last publication (art. 1.052).

Partition of property

Co-ownership can be ended by partition (partaj) at any time (art. 669 of the Civil Code), either by agreement or by court judgment (art. 670). The property is divided in kind, in proportion to each person’s share. If it’s indivisible or can’t conveniently be divided, it’s allotted to one of the co-owners in return for an equalisation payment (sultă), or sold, by agreement or at public auction, and the price is shared (art. 676). Judicial partition claims go to the district court, whatever their value (art. 94 point 1(j) of the Code of Civil Procedure). Dividing property between spouses has its own rules; see the page on matrimonial property and its division. When the co-ownership comes from an inheritance without a will, you can work out the shares with the inheritance calculator.

Boundaries, easements and neighbours

Owners of neighbouring land must help set the boundary (grănițuire) by re-establishing the boundary line and putting in the markers, and they share the costs equally (art. 560 of the Civil Code). An easement (servitute) is a burden on one property for the use or benefit of a property belonging to someone else (art. 755), for example a right of way. Boundary claims, and claims concerning easements, shared walls and ditches or the required distance for buildings and plantings, are heard by the district court (art. 94 point 1(e) and (f) of the Code of Civil Procedure).

Land register disputes

When an entry doesn’t match the real legal situation, you can ask for it to be rectified, meaning struck out, amended or corrected (art. 907(1) and (2) of the Civil Code). Rectification is done either amicably, by an authentic notarial statement from the holder of the entry, or by a final court judgment, when the act on which the entry was based has been annulled, the right was wrongly classified or the conditions for its existence are no longer met (art. 908(1) and (2)).

How we work together

1. You send me the land register extract, the title deeds and, if there is one, the preliminary sale agreement or the contract.
2. I tell you what risks I see and which clauses need negotiating before the notary.
3. For disputes, we decide on the route: a notice, a court claim or an amicable partition.
4. I represent you at the Cluj-Napoca District Court or the Cluj Tribunal (Tribunalul Cluj) and, if needed, at the enforcement (executare silită) stage.

If the problem is a tenant who won’t leave the property, see the page on evicting a tenant; for a sale contract that hasn’t been performed, see the page on breach of contract. The court stamp duty (taxă judiciară de timbru) depends on the type of claim and its value; you can estimate it with the stamp duty calculator and check the deadlines with the court deadline calculator. The up-to-date text of the Civil Code is on legislatie.just.ro. If you have a problem with a property, write to me or call me. Send me the land register extract or whatever documents you have to hand, and I’ll tell you what I see.