CASE OF SIMOVA AND GEORGIEV v. BULGARIA
Violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 - Protection of property
Isabelle Berro-Lefèvre;Karel Jungwiert;Mark Villiger;Mirjana Lazarova Trajkovska;Peer Lorenzen;Rait Maruste;Renate Jaeger
6. The applicants were born in 1937 and 1960 respectively and live in Sofia. 7. In 1984 the first applicant purchased from the State a two-room apartment of 48 square metres located on a main commercial street in Sofia. The apartment had become State property by virtue of the nationalisations carried out by the communist regime in Bulgaria in 1947 and the following years. 8. In 1987 the first applicant transferred her title to her son, the second applicant, but preserved the right to use one room of the apartment until the end of her life. 9. After the adoption of the Law on the Restitution of Ownership of Nationalised Real Property in 1992, the former pre-nationalisation owners of the apartment brought proceedings against the first applicant under section 7 of that Law seeking the nullification of her title and the return of their former property. They also brought a rei vindicatio action against the second applicant. 10. In 1997 the District Court found that the 1984 transaction had been valid and dismissed the claims. 11. On appeal, on 6 August 1998 the claims were granted by the Sofia City Court, which also ordered the applicants to vacate the apartment. The final judgment was that of the Supreme Court of Cassation of 20 July 1999, which upheld the Sofia City Court’s judgment. 12. The courts found that in 1984, at the time of the transaction, the building plan of Sofia had envisaged the demolition of the applicants’ apartment building and the construction of a new apartment building. The relevant regulations had prohibited the sale of State apartments in such circumstances. It followed that the first applicant had obtained the apartment unlawfully. Thus, her title had been null and void and the second applicant’s title was null and void as well. 13. The applicants were evicted in April 2000. 14. In 2000, it became possible for the applicants to obtain compensation from the State, in the form of bonds which could be used in privatisation tenders or sold to brokers. 15. On 5 February 2001 the regional governor of Sofia refused the applicants’ request for compensation bonds. Upon the applicants’ appeal, in judgments of 2002 and 2003 the courts quashed the refusal and granted the applicants’ request. 16. In June 2003 an expert appointed by the courts assessed the market value of the apartment at 22,032 Bulgarian levs (“BGN”), the equivalent of approximately EUR 11,200. The applicants submitted the opinion of another expert, who assessed the apartment’s market value at BGN 40,490 (the equivalent of approximately EUR 20,700). 17. In February 2004 the applicants received compensation bonds for BGN 21,600 (the equivalent of approximately EUR 11,000). 18. They sold them on 26 November 2004, when bonds were traded at 68% of face value, and obtained BGN 15,055.20 (the equivalent of approximately EUR 7,680). 19. In 1999 the first applicant brought an action under the State Responsibility for Damage Act seeking BGN 44,800 in damages from the State and the Sofia municipality, which had sold her the apartment in breach of the relevant domestic law. On 10 April 2006 the claim was disallowed in a final judgment of the Sofia Court of Appeal, which found that the authorities’ actions in concluding the contract of sale did not give rise to responsibility under the State Responsibility for Damage Act and that in any event the first applicant could have refused to buy an apartment in breach of the law. 20. The relevant background facts and domestic law and practice have been summarised in the Court’s judgment in the case of Velikovi and Others v. Bulgaria (nos. 43278/98, 45437/99, 48014/99, 48380/99, 51362/99, 53367/99, 60036/00, 73465/01 and 194/02, 15 March 2007).