Bulgaria

Ekaterina R. Rousseva1

Introduction

The history of Bulgarian tenancy law dates back to the end of the 19th century. The first law, containing provisions on tenancy contracts - the Law on Contracts and Obligations - was enacted in 1892.2 In its major parts the law was a reception from the Italian Civil Code of 1865. It comprised a general part dealing with all types of obligatory relationships and a special part dealing with various types of contracts, inclusive of tenancy contracts.

At the beginning of the 20th century, the need for State intervention in regulating tenancy relationships became palpable due to urbanization and an increase in the population of major cities, particularly that of the capital. This need dramatically increased during and after the World War I when economic crises affected the solvency of Bulgarian citizens’. As a direct result, many families found themselves unable to meet rent payments and many ended up on the street.3 This prompted the adoption of the first special statute on tenancy in 1917, known as the “Law on Tenancy and on Buildings during the War Period”4. The law provided for special protection of tenants and restricted the landlords’ right to increase rents. In the period between 1920 and 1944, various special laws and regulations aimed at protecting that sector of the population who did not own their housing was enacted. These laws were normally short in life,5 being adopted in order to respond to particular social needs that stemmed from the social or economic crises characteristic of that period. Common features of these special tenancy laws and regulations - named also exclusive laws and regulations - were: restrictions on rent increase, the imposition of obligations on owners to rent rooms or houses if the living space per person in a family exceeded the figures established in law. Normally, these laws were limited in temporal, territorial6 and subjective scope.7 The special legislation excluded the application of the general regime, provided for in the Law on Contracts and Obligations, where the latter was in contradiction with the former. However, due to the limited temporal, territorial and subjective scope of the special legislation, the two regimes - both the general and the exclusive - applied concurrently.

The Regime During Socialism

1Researcher, EUI Florence.

2Promulgated in State Gazette 268/ 05.12. 1892; which entered into force as of 1st March, 1893.

3See Andreev, M. “ History of the Bulgarian Bourgeois State and Law, 1878-1917” SNI. Second ed., 1980, at p.77-78.

4Published in State Gazette 79/12.04.1917. On the preparatory work of the law, see Borissov, J. “Tenancy Law in Bulgaria”, Book I, Ciela, 2002, at p.16-22.

5On the history of these laws see Borissov, op. cit, supra note 3, at p.29-108.

6Normally limited to big cities or to the capital only.

7The State intervened also by building apartments in shared buildings, these apartments were rented under the rules of the special regime; see for instance the Law on making economical houses and the encouragement of house building, published in State Gazette 65/ 24.04.1924.