Characterised by investment analysts as one of the most profitable European real estate markets, Romania is currently experiencing an influx of investments targeted mainly at residential, commercial and office sites. Although a careful analysis of the investment target is a prerequisite in any type of deal, a thorough investigation of the ownership title is of particular importance in Romania, due to specific legal provisions applicable in this respect.
As other countries in Central and Eastern Europe, Romania was subject to a communist regime characterised by the nationalisation of private properties and even by a temporary interdiction of transactions regarding plots of land. After 1990, as part of structural reforms implemented in Romania, the restitution of former nationalised or otherwise expropriated properties has been subject to different mechanisms implemented by specific legal provisions, while the courts of law have been busy with numberless restitution claims filed by former owners of immovable assets. Due to the fact that some of the mechanisms implemented by the laws applicable in relation to nationalised immovable assets have not been thoroughly coordinated with the general principles of civil law that governed the legal regime of property, the case law generated by restitution claims has been sometimes inconsistent, and different solutions have been given to similar cases. As restitution claims referring to nationalised immovables may be grounded either on general principles of law, in which case the claims are addressed to courts of law, or on specific legal provisions that regulate an administrative restitution procedure, different decisions, with different consequences, have been adopted by the courts of law.
