“Plaster and screed”
is not a definition.
Neither the Spatial Development Act, nor Ordinance No. 4, nor a BDS standard defines it, and the difference between its two readings is close to €36,000.
Six words without a definition Neither the Spatial Development Act nor BDS knows them
“Plaster and screed” (шпакловка и замазка), “capped off” (на тапа), “to BDS” (по БДС), “turnkey” (до ключ), “semi-finished” (полуготов), “before finishing works” (преди довършителни работи). Six phrases used every day in Varna to sell apartments worth hundreds of thousands of euros. Not one of them has a definition in a law, an ordinance or a standard.
This is not an assumption. The full consolidated texts of the Spatial Development Act (Закон за устройство на територията, ЗУТ) and of Ordinance No. 4 on the scope and content of investment projects (Наредба № 4) were searched word by word. Zero occurrences. The only place where the Spatial Development Act touches the subject at all is the definition of rough construction (груб строеж) (§ 5, item 46 of the supplementary provisions): a building with enclosing walls and a roof, “with no finishing works or with finishing works carried out to a varying degree”. In other words, the law recognises that the degrees differ, and leaves the difference between them undescribed.
The abbreviation BDS stands for Bulgarian State Standard (Български държавен стандарт). When the Bulgarian Institute for Standardisation (Български институт за стандартизация) is asked, the answer is that no official standard for finishing works exists, and the degree of completion is a matter of agreement with the contractor. A Varna developer says the same on its own website. In 2018 four industry organisations (the Bulgarian Construction Chamber (Камарата на строителите), the National Association of Building Developers (НАСП), the Chamber of Architects in Bulgaria (Камарата на архитектите) and the Chamber of Engineers in Investment Design (КИИП)) backed an initiative to introduce a standard for the degree of completion in new multi-family construction. Eight years later no such standard can be found published.
The conclusion is not that someone is lying. The conclusion is that the word carries no content and everyone fills it in themselves. The buyer fills it in too, usually with the most generous version possible.
One name, three different contents
Checked against published descriptions
Three market participants publish a description of “BDS” and “capped off”, each presented as “here is what you get”. The lists match in only one place: the terraces with porcelain tiles. Everywhere else they diverge, and the one match is exactly what shows that the mismatches are not accidental.
Switches and sockets. Two of the three count them as part of “BDS”. The third lists them explicitly as an extra, and so describes the degree as “capped off to BDS plus paint plus fitted switches and sockets”. A developer who attaches a “plus” sign to the name of a standard proves on its own that the standard carries no content.
Interior doors. Two say there are none. The third says you will get a plain plywood door unless you order a more expensive one. The difference between “no door” and “the cheapest door” is several thousand euros in a two-bedroom apartment: the price of one interior door with fitting ranges between €250 and €2,000.
Paint and sanitary ware. One describes walls “plastered and prepared for painting”. The other describes walls “painted white”. One says nothing about sanitary ware. The other excludes it by name, together with the close-coupled toilet, the taps, the traps and the mixers. A buyer who read the first description and buys under the second has already got the budget wrong, without anyone having misled them.
The degree of completion means two different things And both are expressed with the same three words
There is an administrative degree of completion and a commercial degree of completion. The first is defined and proven with a document. The second is not defined at all.
A buyer who asks for “the document for the degree of completion” usually receives a certificate from the municipality with a statement of findings (констативен протокол) attached. In our file for one Varna property there is exactly such a document, issued by the Architecture, Urban Development and Spatial Planning Directorate (Дирекция „Архитектура, градоустройство и устройствено планиране“) of Varna Municipality. It confirms that the building has been completed at the rough construction stage within the meaning of § 5, item 46 of the Spatial Development Act, and lists the attached acts. The document is entirely correct. It says that the enclosing walls and the roof are in place. About what will be inside, it does not say a word.
The second level of the trap is on the paper itself: “This statement is valid for three months from the date of its issue.” A document issued in March and presented to a bank in July no longer certifies anything and has to be obtained again. Which act means what is a separate subject, covered in Act 14, 15 and 16.
The buyer asks about the degree of completion and gets an answer about the other degree. The conversation counts as held. Nobody lied. And nobody understood.
The screed you pay for twice
The floor is done. It is not level.
The apartment is sold as “plaster and screed”. The buyer budgets for laminate flooring and sees that fitting costs €3.07/sq m. Then the tradesman measures and says the floor is not level.
Levelling surfaces costs €10.23/sq m under a public Varna price list for 2026, self-levelling screed is €12.78, cement screed €15.34. All three figures are labour only, without materials. For an apartment of 55.64 sq m that is between €569 and €854 in labour, plus materials, plus lost time at a stage when there is no longer anyone to negotiate with.
The reason it gets missed is physical, not legal: differences in level cannot be seen on an empty floor and only show when the flooring starts to go down or when the light falls from the side. And the screed “has been done”. To the letter, the builder has delivered exactly what was promised. The buyer did not buy a level floor. The buyer bought the word “screed”.
The same mechanism works further down the list. If switches and sockets are beyond the line, the doors, the sanitary ware and the floor coverings are probably there too. The budget is not off by one item, but in its very principle.
“Turnkey” is the most dangerous of the six words because it sounds the safest
“Plaster and screed” at least sounds unfinished. “Turnkey” sounds like the end of the conversation. What it actually covers depends entirely on who wrote it.
One Varna platform explicitly includes furnishing in a “turnkey apartment”. One developer includes “fitting of a kitchen and kitchen appliances” and “furnishing”. A third offers “turnkey finishing” and furnishing separately for an additional charge, so in its case “turnkey” does not include furniture. Three sources, three different answers to whether the kitchen is included. And all three are acting in good faith, because nobody is breaching a definition that does not exist.
The kitchen, based on a real Varna enquiry for seven metres, is €1,800 to €3,000. The buyer discovers what is missing at the moment when everything has already been paid and there is no leverage left.
The same platform cannot even agree with itself: on one of its pages it gives a “turnkey apartment” for Varna at €450 to €900/sq m, and on another a “complete turnkey renovation” at €350 to €800/sq m. One site, one city, one year, one word, two prices. The difference at the bottom end alone is over €5,500 for 55 sq m.
The calculation on one real apartment
Thirty-six thousand euros in one phrase
An apartment from our portfolio in Vladislavovo: 55.64 sq m, rough construction, asking price €85,000, that is €1,528/sq m. We run the published finishing prices over it, without adding anything of our own.
At budget level (€256/sq m) the finishing is €14,244 and the final price becomes €1,784/sq m. At the bottom end of “turnkey” for Varna (€450/sq m) it is €25,038 and €1,978/sq m. At the top end (€900/sq m) it is €50,076 and the final price is €2,428/sq m.
The difference between the two ends is close to €36,000 and it is decided by one phrase without a definition. For comparison, the median asking price for a one-bedroom apartment (двустаен) in Vladislavovo is €1,571/sq m, based on about a hundred listings (alo.bg, taken on 22 August 2026). So the same apartment, finished, comes out between 14% and 55% above the neighbourhood median. The median covers the housing stock in the neighbourhood as a whole, mostly old, while new construction carries a premium, so the figure should be read as an order of magnitude, not as a valuation. How the real price of a property is put together is covered in The real price of a property.
There is also a second calculation that almost nobody makes: the bank finances the purchase price, not the finishing. The difference has to be found in cash, after the loan has already been disbursed. The mechanics of the financing itself are in Mortgage loan step by step.
Which law settles the dispute when the word is empty The answer is: proof, not reading
The preliminary contract (предварителен договор) “must contain provisions on the essential terms of the final contract” (Art. 19(2) of the Obligations and Contracts Act (ЗЗД)). For a property under construction the degree of finishing is an essential term, because it determines what exactly is being transferred. The general mechanics of this contract are in The preliminary contract, and the risks of buying off-plan are in Buying off-plan.
Such a contract also contains elements of a contract for work (договор за изработка), so Art. 261(1) of the Obligations and Contracts Act also applies: the work must be fit for “its ordinary purpose or the purpose provided for in the contract”. This is where the lack of a definition becomes a legal problem. If the contract only says “plaster and screed”, the court looks for the ordinary. And the ordinary, for an empty word, means “as it is ordinarily done”, that is, in three different ways at once.
Interpretation goes through Art. 20 of the Obligations and Contracts Act: what is sought is the actual common will of the parties, “in view of the purpose of the contract, customary practice and good faith”. Customary practice is exactly what the three published descriptions failed to reduce to a single list. The dispute is not settled by reading the law, but by proof. And the cost of proving it can easily exceed the price of the kitchen that started it.
And finally the door closes by itself. Under Art. 264 of the Obligations and Contracts Act, all objections to defective performance must be raised at acceptance, and if they are not raised, the work is deemed accepted. The warranty periods after that are a separate regime and a separate subject.
The only document that carries content
and why it does not enter the contract by itself
Ordinance No. 4 requires the working design to set out the solutions for “the execution of the windows and doors, floor coverings, cladding and other types of finishing construction and installation works” (Art. 36(2), item 4) and to include a specification of the construction products to be used (Art. 38, item 1). The design knows. It is a binding document, unlike the advertising brochure.
But the same ordinance contains two catches. The bill of quantities and costs applies “when this is provided for in the design brief (contract)” (Art. 39), so there is no statutory obligation for the design to carry a price for the finishing. And the “interior and furnishing” part, which covers the treatment of the floor, walls and ceiling and the layout of the furnishing elements, may be prepared (Art. 41(1)). The kitchen, the doors and the floor coverings live exactly in the part the law does not require.
From there follows the sentence that decides the outcome of the whole deal: the design does not automatically become part of the sale contract. It only becomes part of it if the contract makes it so. This is exactly where deals differ from one another, and exactly what cannot be seen at signing, because it does not look like something missing. It looks like a normal contract.
That is why the subject is not “who is the good developer”. The subject is which deal carries content behind the word and which carries only the word. That cannot be seen from the listing, cannot be seen from the brochure and cannot be seen from the municipality’s certificate. It can be seen from the documents taken together, and from what is missing between them.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a BDS standard for the degree of completion?
No. The abbreviation stands for Bulgarian State Standard, but a check with the Bulgarian Institute for Standardisation shows that no standard for finishing works in construction exists. The institute’s answer is that the degree of completion is a matter of agreement with the contractor. A Varna developer says the same publicly on its own website. In 2018 four industry organisations backed an initiative to introduce such a standard, but eight years later no adopted and published standard can be found. In other words, “to BDS” is the name of something that does not exist.
What exactly does “plaster and screed” include?
There is no legal answer, because the phrase is not defined in the Spatial Development Act, in Ordinance No. 4 or in any standard. In practice it includes plastered walls, a cement screed on the floor, fitted PVC windows, an entrance door and installations capped off at the outlet. The differences start right after that: in some descriptions switches and sockets are included, in others they are an explicit extra; in some there are no interior doors at all, in others the cheapest ones are fitted. Sanitary ware, floor coverings, paint and the kitchen usually stay outside the scope. The only thing that carries content is the specific contract together with the working design, if the contract has made it part of itself.
How much does it cost to finish an apartment sold as plaster and screed?
Published prices for Varna in 2026 range between €256 and €900 per square metre, so the top end is about three and a half times the bottom end. The bottom end is budget finishing without furniture, the top end includes floor coverings, bathrooms, a kitchen and furnishing. For an apartment of 55.64 sq m this means between €14,244 and €50,076, a difference of close to €36,000 on the same property. The figures do not match because the word “finishing” itself has no single content, not because the market is chaotic.
Does the municipality’s certificate of the degree of completion tell you what the apartment will contain?
No. This document is administrative and confirms that the building has been completed at the rough construction stage within the meaning of § 5, item 46 of the supplementary provisions of the Spatial Development Act, that is, that the enclosing walls and the roof are in place. It says nothing about the interior works. In addition, the statement of findings itself is valid for three months from issue, so if it is obtained earlier and presented to a bank or a notary later, it certifies nothing and has to be obtained again. The buyer asks about one degree of completion and gets a correct answer about the other.
Buying at
plaster and screed?
This evening, find the sentence in the contract or the draft contract that describes the finishing, and read it literally. Do not look at whether it sounds good, but at whether it lists anything at all: doors, switches and sockets, sanitary ware, floor coverings, paint, kitchen. If all it contains is the name of a degree, not a list, the content has not been agreed yet.
Send us that sentence together with the link to the listing and the floor area. We send back an assessment of what remains at your expense under the three readings on the market, what the difference in euros is between them, and which documents should be requested from the developer before there is any talk of a deposit.
The assessment is commercial and practical, not a legal opinion. The published prices are a guide as of 2026 and change.
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