Ownership is not lost
through the passing of time.
It is lost precisely and only because someone else has acquired it. Prescription is the main way this happens without a signature, without a notary and without the owner finding out.
Two articles of the Property Act (Закон за собствеността) carry the whole topic. Art. 77 says that the right of ownership is acquired through a legal transaction, by prescription (давност) or in other ways set out in the law. Art. 99 is its reverse side: “The right of ownership is lost if another person acquires it or if the owner renounces it.”
So ownership is not lost by not visiting, by not paying the tax or by the passing of time in itself. And, against intuition, the claim under Art. 108 of the Property Act, by which the owner seeks the return of the property, is not extinguished by time alone. It fails when the other side has become the owner. That is why the whole dispute in court is about the other person’s possession, not about the owner’s inaction.
Physically they look the same. They differ in intention.
Possession (владение) is the exercise of actual control over a thing that the possessor holds as their own. Holding (държане) is the exercise of actual control over a thing that the person does not hold as their own (Art. 68 of the Property Act). One person lives in one apartment, and the difference lies entirely in an intention that cannot be seen.
That is why the law introduces a presumption: the possessor is presumed to hold the thing as their own until it is proved that they hold it for someone else (Art. 69 of the Property Act). The consequence is serious and rarely understood in time: the burden of proof falls on the owner. The possessor does not prove that it is theirs; the owner proves that the other person holds it for them.
The tenant, the borrower, the caretaker and the relative allowed to live in the property exercise control on a basis that recognises someone else’s right. Case law calls these tolerated acts (търпими действия), and time does not turn them into possessors. A reversal (преобръщане) is needed: open and unambiguous acts that deny the owner’s rights and are brought to the owner’s knowledge.
⚠️ The line is moving, however. In Decision No 755 of 17 December 2025, the Supreme Court of Cassation (ВКС) accepted that, in cohabitation lasting over twenty years, living together plus substantial alterations can go beyond tolerated acts. This is a shift of the line, not an established rule.
Two identical cases
with opposite outcomes.
Under Interpretative Decision (ТР) No 1 of 6 August 2012 of the General Assembly of the Civil Chambers of the Supreme Court of Cassation (ОСГК на ВКС), the presumption in Art. 69 of the Property Act applies between co-owners when the co-ownership arises from a legal fact other than inheritance.
If the co-ownership comes from inheritance, possession continues through the heirs by law. The one who stayed inside is, as a rule, a holder of the other shares and has to prove a reversal.
If it comes from a transaction in which the acquirer was given possession of the whole property, while the transferor owned only an undivided share (идеална част), the acquirer is the possessor of the whole property and the presumption works in their favour.
“One person has lived in the property for thirty years” has opposite outcomes depending on how the possession began thirty years ago. This is not visible from any document and is proved with witness testimony.
How to get out of co-ownership once the dispute is decided: co-ownership and partition.
Ten years. Or five, if there is a document.
Under Art. 79 of the Property Act, the right of ownership of real property is acquired through uninterrupted possession for 10 years, and with good-faith possession for 5 years.
Good faith is not “not being a bad person”. Under Art. 70 of the Property Act, a possessor is in good faith when they possess on a legal basis capable of making them the owner, without knowing that the transferor is not the owner or that the form was defective. So the short period requires a document: a notarial deed (нотариален акт) from a non-owner, a deed with a defective form, a transaction by a person who turned out to be only a co-heir.
This is exactly why the five-year period is dangerous for the buyer: it starts running from a defective transaction, and defective transactions look like regular ones.
And the four rules that shift the calculation. Losing possession for more than six months interrupts prescription (Art. 81 of the Property Act). The possessor can add the possession of their transferor to their own (Art. 82). Anyone who proves they possessed at different times is presumed to have possessed in between as well (Art. 83). And the rules also apply to other rights in rem (Art. 85): a right to build and an easement can also be lost by prescription.
The combination of Art. 82 and Art. 83 is what makes prescription provable after decades: not every day is proved, but the beginning, the end and the continuity. And one difference that costs years: suspension preserves the time already run, interruption erases it. Filing a claim interrupts; the owner’s death suspends nothing.
Adopted for seven months.
In force for fifteen years.
Prescription against private state and private municipal property has run since 1 June 1996. On 31 May 2006 it was suspended by a law adopted for seven months. The moratorium was extended five times. At the beginning of 2018 there was a short window of about three weeks in which prescription actually ran, because the term had expired and the new law was promulgated later, with retroactive effect.
With Decision No 3 of 24 February 2022, the Constitutional Court (Конституционен съд) declared the provisions unconstitutional, and the decision took effect on 8 March 2022. The reasoning: the retroactive effect given in 2018 achieves an effect close to the compulsory expropriation of property already acquired by prescription.
The arithmetic from here on is ours, not a quotation. Suspension preserves the time already run, so the time before 31 May 2006 is added to the time after 8 March 2022, and the moratorium itself does not count. Possession that began before 2006 with about six years accumulated expires around March 2026. Possession that began after 8 March 2022 with no earlier time expires on 8 March 2027 in good faith and on 8 March 2032 without it.
So 2026 is the first year in which ten-year periods against municipal and state property expire on a large scale for people with time accumulated before 2006.
Two limits remain. Under Art. 86 of the Property Act, public state and municipal property cannot be acquired by prescription at all: streets, squares, parks, beaches. Whether property is public or private cannot be seen on the ground. And the municipal ownership deed (акт за общинска собственост) does not create ownership: it only has a declaratory effect, so a municipality that has registered a deed over a property someone has possessed for thirty years is not protected by that fact.
A clean register record proves nothing
Throughout the five or ten years nothing is registered. There is no contract, no deed, no register record. The acquisition happens entirely outside the property register (Имотен регистър), and the first and only document appears at the end, in one of two forms: a declaratory notarial deed (констативен нотариален акт) or a court judgment.
So a full encumbrance check, carried out perfectly, shows a clean record. It cannot show what has not been registered. The lack of a chain before the only deed is the warning sign, not the reassurance. What else gets checked: checking the property.
And both documents have the same name. The deed under Art. 587(1) of the Civil Procedure Code (ГПК) rests on written evidence. The deed under paragraph 2 rests on a circumstantial check (обстоятелствена проверка) by questioning three witnesses nominated by the mayor of the municipality. On the outside they differ by one line of text.
Under Interpretative Decision No 11 of 21 March 2013 of the General Assembly of the Civil Chambers, such a deed does not carry material evidentiary force as to its finding on who holds the right. The document is both weaker and stronger than it looks: weaker, because it does not prove ownership against a person with a better right; stronger, because if it is challenged the burden is on the challenger, if they have no document of their own. It is not proof, but a starting position.
Thirteen supreme judges
wrote down what the door is.
Under Interpretative Decision No 4 of 17 December 2012, invoking prescription is not an element of the legal requirements for prescription but a procedural means of defence. A property may have been acquired by prescription by a person who did not invoke it before their death, and their rights may be recognised for their heirs in court proceedings.
And Interpretative Decision No 2 of 6 November 2025 held that the loss of possession for more than six months by a person who invokes prescription completed in favour of the person they inherited from does not prevent the effect in rem from arising. The reasoning: once the period has run, the control exercised is no longer possession but the exercise of a power under the right of ownership, so Art. 81 of the Property Act no longer applies.
The decision was taken with 13 dissenting opinions. In their text the dissenting judges write that the answer adopted “will also make abuse possible and will create legal uncertainty in property relations, as it will encourage reliance on prescription periods that ran and were interrupted many years ago”.
The practical consequence for the buyer: an owner by prescription may be a person who has not set foot in the property for years, who has never obtained a document, and whose right comes from a period that ran in favour of a deceased relative. Such a person is not visible anywhere: not on site, not in a register, not in the tax file.
The fee is the small part. The big part is proving it.
On the notarial route the costs are paid up front. For a property with a tax assessment (данъчна оценка) of about €30,000: an application-declaration of about €18 including VAT, a fee for the circumstantial check itself of about €321 including VAT, registration of about €30 and the 3% local tax for Varna Municipality, which is about €900. In total, in the order of €1,270.
Two details from the tariff itself that are not in any calculator. The fee for the circumstantial check is due when the request is filed and is not refunded if ownership is not recognised. And the reverse, in the applicant’s favour: the fee for drafting the deed is not charged when the circumstantial check case was opened by the same notary.
On the court route the value of the claim is set by the tax assessment, and the state fee is 4% of one quarter of it, which is effectively 1% of the tax assessment: for the same property about €300, plus registration of the statement of claim, a lawyer, expert reports and two or three instances.
The number is not frightening. What is frightening is the rest: the dispute is decided with witness testimony about events from twenty or thirty years ago, and the burden falls on whoever has no document. The court fee is the smallest cost in such a case.
What this looks like
from the inside.
The heir who discovers that his grandfather’s property belongs to someone else. A cousin stays on living in the house, pays the tax, carries out repairs. After twenty years he obtains a declaratory deed based on a circumstantial check. The co-ownership comes from inheritance, so as a rule he is a holder and has to prove a reversal. Against that stand twenty years of repairs and neighbours who will testify that “he was always the one in charge”. The real risk is not that they lose, but that they win partly and end up co-owners with a person they are not on speaking terms with.
The buyer from an owner by circumstantial check. Eight months after the deal an heir appears. If he has a document of his own, the burden is allocated under the general rule and the buyer defends someone else’s history that he does not know. A property with a registered statement of claim is, moreover, practically unsellable and unfinanceable for as long as the case lasts.
The owner who lives elsewhere. A relative has the key “to air the place out”. The relative moves in, changes the lock, declares the property. So far these are tolerated acts. Prescription starts only from a denial brought to the owner’s knowledge, and “brought to knowledge” is proved by what could have been learned. What protects the owner: visits, correspondence, written notices. The notarial deed is not lost; the property under it is.
The yard that is 40 sq m smaller than the sketch. A physical part of a plot of land is acquired by prescription only if it can be separated as an independent property. If it cannot, an undivided share is acquired. So the buyer may turn out to be a co-owner with the neighbour of their own yard. It is recognised on the ground, not in the documents. Related topic: the inherited property.
Frequently asked questions
Can I lose my property just because I have not been there for years?
Not from inaction in itself. Under Art. 99 of the Property Act, the right of ownership is lost if another person acquires it or if the owner renounces it. So it is lost because someone else has possessed the property as their own for ten years, or five if the possession is in good faith. The action for recovery of possession under Art. 108 of the Property Act is not extinguished by prescription in itself; it fails when the other side has already become the owner.
Does a tenant or relative who lives in the property acquire it over time?
As a rule, no. They exercise actual control on a basis that recognises someone else’s right, and case law treats them as holders and their acts as tolerated. For prescription to start running in their favour, the possession has to be reversed: open and unambiguous acts that deny the owner’s rights and are brought to the owner’s knowledge. These acts are proved separately in each specific dispute.
What is a notarial deed based on a circumstantial check?
It is the deed under Art. 587(2) of the Civil Procedure Code. It is issued when the owner does not have enough written evidence, and the notary establishes the right by questioning three witnesses nominated by the mayor. Under Interpretative Decision No 11 of 21 March 2013 of the General Assembly of the Civil Chambers of the Supreme Court of Cassation, such a deed does not carry material evidentiary force as to who holds the right of ownership. It has a legitimising effect, meaning that if it is challenged the burden falls on the challenger, but it is not proof of ownership against a person with a better right.
Does prescription run against municipal and state property?
Against private state and private municipal property prescription runs, and it has run continuously since 8 March 2022, when Decision No 3 of 24 February 2022 of the Constitutional Court, which declared the moratorium unconstitutional, took effect. The time that elapsed before the suspension on 31 May 2006 is added to the time after 8 March 2022, and the moratorium itself does not count. Against public state and municipal property prescription does not run at all, under Art. 86 of the Property Act.
One question for the chain
Look at how many documents stand before the seller’s. A single deed with nothing before it is a different case from a deed backed by a transaction, which is backed by another transaction. It is a thirty-second question, and it is asked before the deposit, not after it.
Send us the document the seller relies on to prove ownership and the year it dates from. We send back which period is running, who has interrupted it and what stands behind the only document.
This material is not legal advice. The specific case should be checked by a lawyer.
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