You signed a preliminary.
The property is not yours yet.
A signed contract, a deposit paid, a date agreed at the notary, and a feeling that the job is done. The whole structure holding up a deal worth a hundred thousand euros rests on one article with three paragraphs.
Between the signature and the notarial deed (нотариален акт) there is a window. During it the property still belongs to the seller, and the buyer is invisible to the property registration system. This article goes through what happens in that window, and what each of the outcomes costs.
It does not provide a contract template and does not replace a lawyer. It gives an idea of what is decided before the meeting, because after the signature the text is no longer yours to shape.
One article, three paragraphs, and three things the signature does not do
Art. 19 of the Obligations and Contracts Act (ЗЗД) requires written form and the essential terms of the future sale, and gives a claim for the conclusion of a final contract. That is all. From there on begin the things the signature does NOT do.
It does not transfer ownership. The buyer has a claim against the seller, not a right in the property. That difference is the whole subject.
Paragraph 2 is a test, not a wish. A contract without a clearly identified property and a clear price cannot be declared final, because the court has nothing to substitute. The gap is not filled in by common sense.
Notarial certification is not a condition of validity and gives nothing against a third party. This is the most widespread mistaken expectation on the subject.
In an off-plan deal this contract is the main document for a long period, and what exactly is owned at each stage is a separate question: Act 14, 15 and 16.
One sum,
three different outcomes.
The word “deposit” (капаро) does not exist in Bulgarian legislation. The law regulates earnest money (задатък) (Art. 93 of the Obligations and Contracts Act). The same €10,000 can be three different things, and the difference is not in the word but in the content of the clause.
Advance payment. It is returned, and damages are proven under the general procedure (Art. 82 of the Obligations and Contracts Act).
Earnest money (Art. 93 of the Obligations and Contracts Act). It is lost or returned double, without damages having to be proven.
Contractual penalty (Art. 92 of the Obligations and Contracts Act). It is owed, but can be reduced under paragraph 2.
Counter to intuition: with earnest money, a buyer who has withdrawn loses the whole sum, even if the seller does not have a single provable loss.
And the real dispute is almost never about who is right under the law. It is about whose fault it is. The seller claims a change of mind, the buyer claims a problem discovered with the property. The same fact, three outcomes.
The clause that looks like protection until it is needed
A contractual penalty (неустойка) is owed without proof of damages (Art. 92(1) of the Obligations and Contracts Act). But the court can reduce it as excessive under paragraph 2, and under Interpretative Decision No. 1/2009 of the General Assembly of the Commercial Colleges of the Supreme Court of Cassation (ТР № 1/2009 на ОСТК на ВКС) a penalty agreed outside its securing, compensatory and sanctioning functions is null and void. The assessment is made as at the time of conclusion.
The consequence is concrete: a penalty with no upper limit or no end date for accrual is vulnerable, because its excessiveness cannot be assessed as at the time of conclusion.
The calculation that makes the point visible. 0.2% a day on €100,000 is €200 a day, that is about 73% a year. Six months of delay come to about €36,000.
The most aggressive-looking protection is also the easiest to knock down. A buyer who relied on it may end up with no compensation at all.
Not the date of signing.
The date of one registration.
The preliminary contract is not among the acts under Art. 112 of the Ownership Act (Закон за собствеността, ЗС) and is not registered, because it does not transfer a right in rem. As long as the buyer holds only this contract, the property can be sold, mortgaged or attached without this showing against the buyer.
What gets registered is the statement of claim (искова молба) (Art. 114 of the Ownership Act). From registration onwards, an acquisition by a third party cannot be enforced against the claimant. Until then it can.
The court checks whether the seller was the owner as at the date the statement of claim was registered (Art. 363 of the Civil Procedure Code (ГПК)). If the seller sold before that date, the claim is dismissed. No property, no deposit, no fees returned.
Even after a case is won, the clock does not stop: 6 months under Art. 115(2) of the Ownership Act to have the judgment entered, otherwise the registration of the statement of claim loses its effect and other parties’ rights become enforceable again.
The right under Art. 19(3) of the Obligations and Contracts Act itself is extinguished by a five-year limitation period (Art. 110 of the Obligations and Contracts Act), counted from the moment the final contract should have been concluded.
The court does not write a contract. The court replaces the notary.
The state fee is misleading precisely because of how low it is. The value of the claim is the tax assessment (данъчна оценка) (Art. 69(1), item 4 of the Civil Procedure Code), and the fee is charged on ¼ of it (Art. 71(2) of the Civil Procedure Code and Interpretative Decision No. 4/2016 of the General Assembly of the Civil Colleges of the Supreme Court of Cassation (ТР № 4/2016 на ОСГК на ВКС)), that is about 1% of the assessment, plus 0.1% for registering the claim.
That is the price of starting a case, not the price of getting the property.
Once the judgment becomes final there are two weeks to pay the price, otherwise the judgment is set aside at the defendant’s request (Art. 362 of the Civil Procedure Code). An attachment (възбрана) is registered on the property won, and the court does not issue a copy of the judgment until the transfer costs and taxes have been paid (Art. 364 of the Civil Procedure Code). These include the local tax on acquisition for consideration, which for Varna Municipality is 3% under the municipal ordinance on local taxes, the notary fee and the registration fee.
A measure of the uncertainty. The question of whether a buyer who has not paid the price in full can ask for the contract to be declared final remained open from 7 August 2020 to 9 May 2023 (Interpretative Decision No. 4/2020 of the General Assembly of the Civil and Commercial Colleges of the Supreme Court of Cassation (ТР № 4/2020 на ОСГТК на ВКС), with a dissenting opinion). Close to three years to answer a question every such buyer asks. And since 18 February 2025, Ordinance No. 1 (Наредба № 1) no longer sets mandatory minimum lawyers’ fees, so there is no statutory benchmark for the largest cost item either.
The bank said no.
The deposit was paid in cash.
A refusal by the bank is not, by default, grounds for withdrawing from the contract. Unless there is an explicit clause on what happens in that case, for the seller this is non-performance by the buyer. The price is the whole deposit, usually 10% of the price, plus the bank valuation and the approval fees.
The scenario is not rare: in the first half of 2026 the share of mortgage deals in Varna is about 55%, so it applies to more than half of buyers.
The threshold under the Limitation of Cash Payments Act (Закон за ограничаване на плащанията в брой) is €5,112.92 and applies to payments “equal to or exceeding” it, so the sum itself is already a breach.
The fine is 25% for an individual and 50% for a legal entity, on the whole payment, not on the excess. There is no lower limit. With €10,000 in cash that is €2,500.
The more expensive problem, however, is not the fine. Without a bank trail, proving the payment comes down to a receipt that the other party disputes.
Context in one sentence: in the first quarter of 2026, 2,433 deals were registered in Varna, 21.5% fewer year on year. Fewer deals means more inexperienced parties at the table. What else gets missed before the deposit: what buyers miss.
Everything in this window is decided before the meeting
The signature creates an obligation, not ownership. Between it and the notarial deed stand a few sentences written in advance, and they are exactly what decides who loses what if something goes wrong.
After the signature the text is no longer yours to shape. So if you have a draft contract, send it to us together with the deadline by which you have to sign it.
This material is not legal advice. The text of a specific deal should be checked by a lawyer.
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