You sign the record.
And the clock stops.
Art. 264 of the Obligations and Contracts Act (ЗЗД) does not ask the builder what it got wrong, it asks you whether you objected.
One signature that changes the direction of everything and it is not the one at the notary
On the whole road to owning an apartment there is one moment almost nobody prepares for, and it is not at the notary. The notarial transaction has been prepared for months and reviewed by a bank, a lawyer and a notary. The handover day happens in passing, usually with a truck outside and someone from the builder in a hurry to get to the next site.
Art. 264 of the Obligations and Contracts Act says: “If it does not make such objections, the work is deemed accepted.” One sentence, with no conditions and no time to think it over. Paragraph 2 before it obliges the accepting party to inspect the work and to make all objections about improper performance right then, at acceptance.
Notice which way the law is looking. It does not oblige the builder to point out what it got wrong. It obliges you to find it and object. The burden is on the accepting party, and on the very day the accepting party is most distracted.
There is also a second door to the same consequence. The Supreme Court of Cassation (ВКС) holds that acceptance also occurs through conduct implying consent (конклудентни действия), meaning behaviour from which consent follows unambiguously, and that the absence of a signed record is not in itself a refusal to accept (Decision No. 99 of 11 July 2017 in commercial case No. 2483/2016). Taking the keys and moving in can do the work of the signature.
It is not clear which law protects you
and that is not a figure of speech
Here comes the first thing that is rarely said out loud: it has not been settled under which regime the builder is liable.
Art. 264 of the Obligations and Contracts Act sits in the section on the contract for work (изработка). If the contract is classified that way, the rights for defects lapse after five years for construction works (Art. 265 of the Obligations and Contracts Act). If it is classified as a sale, the claim for defects in real property lapses one year after the handover, and three years if the seller knowingly concealed the defect (Art. 197 of the Obligations and Contracts Act). The settled case law of the Supreme Court of Cassation treats a contract for building a future property as a mixed contract, while part of legal doctrine insists it is a pure contract for work.
Five years against one, on the same facts. The difference is not decided by the title on the cover of the contract, but by its content and ultimately by the court.
How disputed the question is shows in how far it has gone. On 11 February 2026 the Supreme Court of Cassation opened Interpretative Case No. 1/2026 of the General Assembly of the Civil and Commercial Chambers (ОСГТК) on whether a preliminary contract (предварителен договор) for the sale of a residential property, combined with a construction contract and concluded between a trader and an individual, falls within the scope of the Consumer Protection Act (ЗЗП). At the time of writing there is no decision.
Whatever the outcome, the regime of unfair terms under Art. 143 and Art. 146 of the Consumer Protection Act applies to consumer contracts. A clause such as “by signing, the buyer accepts the property without objections and has no claims” is a candidate for that kind of review. A candidate, not a result: the dispute is fought in court, not at the table on handover day.
The sheet you sign has no statutory template and that is not an oversight
Ordinance No. 3 of 31 July 2003 (Наредба № 3) governs the acts and records drawn up during construction, about seventeen of them, including form 14, form 15, form 16 and form 17. All of them document the relations between the parties to the construction contracts: the client (възложител), the builder, the designer and the construction supervisor.
The ordinance contains no record for handing over an individual unit to a buyer.
Art. 176(1) of the Spatial Development Act (ЗУТ) states expressly that the statement of findings after completion of the construction (Act 15, Акт 15) “also effects the handover of the construction from the builder to the client”. Builder to client, not builder to buyer. The buyer is not a party and does not sign. Some texts in the industry confuse the two and write that with Act 15 the building is handed over to the buyer. Under the law it is not, and the discrepancy itself shows how little attention this exact point has received. What each stage means is described in Act 14, 15 and 16: what exactly you are buying.
The consequence is simple and inconvenient. Your record is a negotiated document written by the builder, with no statutory minimum content. It is a private document with evidential value in a dispute, and that is exactly why its wording decides the outcome, not the mere fact that it exists.
Apparent and hidden: the line is drawn by an expert
not by you, on the spot
Art. 264 of the Obligations and Contracts Act separates defects with a single phrase: “in the ordinary manner of acceptance”.
Apparent defects are objected to at acceptance. Hidden ones, meaning those that cannot be found in an ordinary inspection or that appear later, are reported immediately after discovery. Miss the moment, and you lose the rights under Art. 265 of the Obligations and Contracts Act in both cases.
Two things make this sharper than it sounds.
First, the word “immediately” has no number. The Supreme Court of Cassation holds that the provision sets no specific period and that it is assessed according to the facts of the case. A buyer who finds a leak and waits a month “to see whether it happens again” has taken a risk whose size cannot be measured in advance.
Second, the classification is made in court. A crack may be an apparent cosmetic defect, or it may be the outward sign of a hidden structural problem. The same property, two different fates for the claim. The person who decides which of the two it is, is an expert appointed in the case (вещо лице), not you with a phone in your hand in an empty apartment.
An illustration of the cost: a leak in a service shaft that shows up in the seventh month. Classified as a “contract for work”, you are comfortably within the time limit. As a “sale”, you are within the time limit, but with half a year to spare. Had the same leak appeared in the fourteenth month, the two regimes would give opposite outcomes.
The date in the record starts several clocks at once and floor area is one of them
The date of the actual handover, not the date of the notarial deed (нотариален акт), is the one from which the time limits run: the one-year period under Art. 197(2) of the Obligations and Contracts Act, the one-year period under Art. 211 of the Obligations and Contracts Act for claims over a difference in floor area, as well as liability for utilities and for the costs of the condominium (етажна собственост). Without a record, the date has to be proven. With a record, it is a fact.
Floor area deserves a separate line, because the expectation is the other way round. The cadastre does not measure your apartment. Under Art. 4(5) of Ordinance No. RD-02-20-5, the areas are taken from the title deed, failing that from the investment design, and only when both are missing is the property measured on site. So in the general case the cadastral scheme reproduces the figure from the deed. If anyone measures the home at all, it is you, on handover day.
The threshold under Art. 210 of the Obligations and Contracts Act is 1/10 of the stated space, and it is not an “acceptable deviation”, as is often claimed. It is the limit beyond which a right to withdraw or to terminate arises. Below it, where the price is per unit of measure, the price is adjusted accordingly. Which paragraph applies depends on how the price is worded in the contract: listings talk in euros per square metre, contracts usually give a total price, and the rights in the two cases are different. The five different areas of one apartment are explained in Built-up area, gross area and undivided shares: how much you will live in.
The leverage exists only while something is unpaid
and the schedule has usually eaten it
Art. 266(1) of the Obligations and Contracts Act links payment to acceptance: the price is owed for accepted work. Add to that the general defence of a non-performed contract under Art. 90 of the Obligations and Contracts Act. On paper, the buyer has leverage.
In practice, the payment schedule decides whether that leverage is in the buyer’s hands at all. Typical schedules tied to the construction acts place the last instalment before or around commissioning, and the actual handover of the apartment comes after that. A buyer who has paid the full price before seeing the property finished inside enters acceptance day with nothing but a signature. What these schedules look like and where they break is the subject of Buying off-plan.
Withholding a percentage of the price until the remarks are remedied is not a statutory right. It is a clause. If it is not in the contract, it does not appear on handover day, however reasonable it sounds then.
The same applies to the deadline. Art. 265 of the Obligations and Contracts Act speaks of remedying “within an appropriate period set by it”, with no number. A record with remarks, but with no deadline for remedying them and no consequence for missing it, documents the problem without creating an obligation with a date. The buyer has complied with Art. 264, has recorded the defect, and still has no date by which to demand performance.
And the other direction: the refusal that turns against you
So far everything has been about the risk of signing. There is a symmetrical risk in refusing.
The obligation under Art. 264 of the Obligations and Contracts Act is to accept work performed in accordance with the contract. Work that is not in accordance with the contract does not create such an obligation. The most serious case is in Art. 265: if the defects are so material that the work is unfit for its contractual or ordinary purpose, the contract can be terminated.
The yardstick is not “I like it or I don’t”. And if the court later finds that the refusal was unjustified, under Art. 95 and Art. 96 of the Obligations and Contracts Act the buyer is in creditor’s default (забава на кредитора). The risk of accidental loss or damage passes to the buyer. The necessary costs caused by the delay are borne by the buyer. And the builder is released from the consequences of its own delay, including the penalty for late handover that the buyer was counting on.
In other words, on handover day a legal classification is made, in minutes, without an expert, against someone who does this professionally and wrote the document you are signing. The cost of a mistake in one direction is a repair paid for twice. In the other direction it is a lost contractual claim plus costs.
One more clock that is already running
and who the claim is even against
Two things are left for the end, because both are settled before you have walked into the apartment.
Warranty periods do not start from your handover. Under Art. 160(4) and (5) of the Spatial Development Act they are set by the contract between the client and the contractor, cannot be shorter than the minimums under Ordinance No. 2 of 2003, and run from the day the construction is put into service. If months pass between Act 16 (Акт 16) and key day, those months have been eaten out of the warranty before you move in.
And it is not a given who your claim is against. The construction contract is between the client and the builder, and under Art. 21 of the Obligations and Contracts Act it takes effect between the parties. Case law diverges: some courts hold that a subsequent buyer cannot rely on the warranty liability, because the buyer is not a party and the rights do not automatically follow the property; there is also case law to the contrary. The question “who do I sue” is decided in the contract, before signing, not after the leak appears.
That is why this topic does not end with a checklist. One day, one sheet of paper and several legal classifications, each of which has a price in euros. This is won with preparation before the day, not with attention on the day.
Frequently asked questions
What happens if I sign the record without remarks and the builder promises to fix everything later?
Under Art. 264 of the Obligations and Contracts Act, if you do not raise objections at acceptance, the work is deemed accepted. Apparent defects, meaning those that can be found in the ordinary manner of acceptance, are considered approved with the signature. The verbal promise “we will fix them” has no deadline and no consequence if it is not kept, and remedying the defects afterwards is at your expense. Even if you go to court, the case starts with a provision that works against you.
Is there a statutory template for the handover record of an apartment?
No. Ordinance No. 3 of 31 July 2003 governs the acts and records between the client, the builder, the designer and the construction supervisor, and under Art. 176(1) of the Spatial Development Act, with the statement of findings in form 15 the construction is handed over by the builder to the client, not to the buyer. The buyer is not a party to these documents. The record you sign for the home is a negotiated document written by the builder, with no statutory minimum content. It is a private document with evidential value in a dispute, which is why its wording decides the outcome.
How long do I have to raise defects after the handover?
It depends on how the contract is classified, and the question is disputed. If it is classified as a contract for work, the rights under Art. 265 of the Obligations and Contracts Act lapse after five years for construction works. If it is classified as a sale, the claim for defects in real property lapses one year after the handover, and three years if the seller knowingly concealed the defect. On 11 February 2026 the Supreme Court of Cassation opened Interpretative Case No. 1/2026 of the General Assembly of the Civil and Commercial Chambers on a related question. Separately, hidden defects are reported immediately after they are discovered, and “immediately” has no fixed period in the law.
Can I refuse to accept the apartment?
The obligation under Art. 264 of the Obligations and Contracts Act is to accept work performed in accordance with the contract, which means work that is not in accordance with the contract does not create an obligation to accept it. The yardstick, however, is not subjective. If the court finds that the refusal is unfounded, under Art. 95 and Art. 96 of the Obligations and Contracts Act you are in creditor’s default: the risk of damage to the property passes to you, the costs caused by the delay are yours, and the builder is released from the consequences of its own delay, including the penalty for late handover. That is why judging whether a refusal is justified is a legal question, not an everyday one.
Is the handover this week?
Open the contract, not the apartment.
Look for one line in the preliminary contract: is a percentage of the price withheld until the remarks are remedied, and is there a deadline for remedying them with a consequence if it is missed. Also check the date of commissioning, because warranty periods run from it, not from the day you get the keys.
Send us the preliminary contract and the invitation to the handover. We send back which time limits start from the signature, what in the contract works against you on acceptance day, what remains unpaid and where the leverage is, if you still have it. If the documents show that the question is one for a lawyer, we will tell you that too.
This material is general information as of November 2026, is not legal advice and does not replace a lawyer. The classification of a specific contract depends on its content.
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