The restitution of real property abusively taken over by the State before 1989

The restitution of real property abusively taken over by the Romanian state before 1989 is an issue that even now, almost 20 years after the fall of Communism, still ignites social, political and legal debate.

The dispute continues because, despite no less than four landmark laws on the matter, each massively amended over the years, no legislative solution has yet been able to justly, rapidly and definitively settle the conflict between former owners and the current holders of such property. Please note that we use the phrase ‘former owners’ to refer to the owners of real property at the time of the takeover, since it is customarily used to mark the difference from ‘current owners’, even though the lawfulness of the latter’s ownership is, more often than not, debatable.

The Romanian state’s inability to grant appropriate relief for damages suffered by former owners of nationalised real property has been highly criticised by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), which has imposed sanctions and has repeatedly reprehended Romania for violations of human rights. No wonder then that nearly 20 years after the revolution (and close to the electoral campaign for legislative elections), yet another amendment to the real property restoration laws is under debate.

This article will briefly describe the legislative solutions and tendencies manifested in the Romanian case law of the past 20 years in connection with the restitution of intra muros real property, and will also summarise the legal provisions on this matter that were recently submitted for approval. This article could be of interest to foreign and national investors that either have or seek to obtain ownership of such property.

To read the entire article, please download the .pdf attached.