Yet another ill-advised step in the government's law drafting efforts
At the beginning of April 2006, , upon the initiative of non-governmental organizations the Open Society Institute set up an expert working group with a view to drafting a law on condominiums. The working group comprised representatives of the Civic Association against Corruption and Illegal Construction (CACIC), Open Society Institute, Institute for the Development of Public Environment, Bulgarian Housing Association, American Chamber of Commerce, as well as experts with the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works.Almost at the end of the joint sessions for drafting the law, deputy minister Kalin Rogachev gave an interview to The Standart Daily. The interview was entitled "The owners of apartments in condominiums will buy the land around their apartment blocks" (N 4853/July 12 2006ã). The CACIC position is that the interview in question failed to reflect the public attitudes and the philosophy that had been consistently defended by the CACIC during the working group sessions with a view to incorporating it into the provisions of the draft law. This was one of the reasons for us to find it necessary to express our views through the media:
- The draft law on the management of condominiums does not cover the problem of green areas outside apartment blocks - which is in stark contrast with what the deputy minister says. The law does not mandate the local government to grant land ownership to the owners of apartments in residential buildings. This is a mere recommendation, as the municipal council may or may not give its approval to such a transfer regardless of whether a building has undergone sanation or not.
- Neither does the draft law address the issues arising from the restitution of land in urban and other settlements. Many developed open spaces in residential quarters represent restituted land plots and for this reason cannot be subject to the draft law on condominiums. If their development is to be discontinued, restitution of open areas in residential quarters needs to be halted in its current form (restitution of land within the historical boundaries). Instead, compensation to land owners should take the form of indemnity notes, as is the case in other similar situations.
- The proposed possibility for the owners of apartments in one entrance to form associations represents a by-pass of the right of association in cases where the entrance is an integral part of the apartment block (condominium). Problems will inevitably arise in relation to owners of apartments in the other entrances as a result of an unwarranted confusion of the forms of management provided for by the draft law. What will ensue is legal chaos. Under the existing legal framework, it is possible for owners of apartments to form associations with a view to maintaining the building in which they live. Despite the fact that in some cases an entrance can de jure represent a condominium, (which is the case of entrances in apartment blocks in housing estates), de facto it remains an integral part of a residential building and therefore should be treated as such in the law. For this reason, a law that focuses on individual entrances rather than viewing a residential building in a holistic manner would run counter to common sense and legal logic. Even where an individual entrance represents a condominium by definition, it is based only on the assumption that its pricing is independent from that of the remaining entrances in the building. Again, this cannot serve as a legal ground to treat such an entrance as a separate unit in all other cases related to the regulation of condominiums.
- A striking legal inaccuracy can be observed in the provision of the draft law that reads that those owners of apartments who have acquired (and paid for) the right to implement a construction project on state or municipal land prior to the entry into effect of the proposed law on condominiums will also acquire at no cost to them the right to ownership of state or municipal land /§ 4(1)/. Ownership of an individual apartment incorporates also the acquisition at no cost to the owners of a right to implement a construction project.
- In his interview, the deputy minister failed to inform the public about the objections raised by NGOs in the process of drafting the condominium law. For this reason CACIC believes that it has to attach its objections to this letter as these objections represent an integral part of the draft law.
First and foremost, both central and local administration must live up to their mission and to deliver on their obligation to respect the rights of owners of property in condominiums. Only when this is achieved can we expect the natural consequence, namely a responsible attitude of citizens towards their shared home - the condominiums in which they live.
Therefore, a single step represented by the enactment of a law on condominiums will not be enough to solve the problems of condominiums. Even more, if this piece of legislation is flawed, it can exacerbate the existing problems.
It is not the Rules for the Management of Condominiums that cause problems. The problems are caused by the central government that refuses to recognize the condominium as a legal institute.