Owners of Bulgarian apartment property are informed further on the changes in law regarding condominium ownership and management in part two of our article. In part one on Bulgarian apartment and condominium law changes, which was hopefully interesting, informative and useful to all readers, we introduced the main differences between the new Act on the Management of the Condominium Ownership (the “Act”), applicable as of 1 May 2009, and the old Regulations, where a comparison between the new and the old provisions, regulating the same matters, was made. The article also dealt with some omissions and significant disadvantages of the new regulations, which could be noticed at first glance, without it even being necessary to experience their application before knowing whether they are good changes or not.

Regretfully, just a couple of months later, one major legislative change, which we defined as disadvantageous, already showed its “results”! As we suspected, the new voting rule, according to which voting rights correspond to the ideal shares of the respective owner, has put all small investors in gated holiday complexes in our resorts in a very unfavourable position. This has been particularly true where the developer has been left with many units unsold and therefore a respectively large percentage of the ideal shares, as they have a greater financial interest in controlling the residential complex. This not only arises from their larger ownership right but also from the business intention to provide maintenance and management of the complex.

So, as promised, here are the main new legal standings, introduced with the new Act:
Explicit rules for preparation of the protocol for the General Assembly
A generally positive new regulation, which was missing in the old Acts and Regulations, is the explicit set of rules for the preparation of the protocols of the meetings of the General Assembly (Art. 16, Par. 4 – 9).
The protocol of the meeting is prepared by a secretary, chosen amongst the owners, attending the meeting by the proposal of the chairman of the meeting, with ordinary majority. The protocol must contain the date and place of the meeting, the set agenda, the attending owners/representatives and the respective ideal shares of the common area which they represent which determine their voting rights, a record of the announcements, the proposals and adopted decisions.

The protocol is to be prepared within seven days of the meeting and is to be signed by the chairman and the secretary. If either of them refuses to sign the protocol, this must be noted in it. The owners must be notified within the same term of the prepared protocol and the notification must be conducted under the same rules regulating the calling of meetings. The notification must be placed in a visible place in the condominium ownership as well. The Manager must provide the protocol or a copy thereof to any owner by demand.

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