色花堂

Haha I saw this yesterday and initially thought 3 for 拢30k! But I really regret buying two properties with all the talk of properties being easily claimed by someone else if you don鈥檛 maintain it or visit, yikes, what a mistakatomaka.

i wonder how others with more than one property are utilising them.

My immediate thought was similar -- who in their right mind would want THREE old unrenovated village houses to take care of!

I have a similar issue of one too many houses. One old wreck I fell in love with online and intended to renovate to use as my personal retreat while an apartment in town was our main residence. House 2, a supposedly livable house in the same village, was simply supposed to be used as a base while renovating house 1 and would then be sold on.

Didn't quite work out that way! House 1 is in a remote part of the village, up a very steep hill that will be 4WD access only for at least some of the year. And I don't drive! I'm now renovating house 2 in the village centre for us both to live in. Meanwhile,聽 house 1 is slowly deteriorating. I wanted to sell house 1, but hubby insists on keeping it.

So how do we show the property isn't abandoned? Am I right assuming just paying the council tax and popping up there once a year won't be enough?

Being "abandoned" is actually immaterial - and anyone interested in doing a bit of jiggery-pokery to get a free(-ish) house probably won't be too interested in a ramshackle fixer-upper anyway.聽 You'd be surprised just how many properties in decent nick are left empty for protracted periods, and for all sorts of reasons.聽 Adverse possession isn't an epidemic, so you're much more likely to get burgled than dispossessed! 馃槂

Paying the municipal tax certainly doesn't hurt, literally and metaphorically, and you'd soon see if anyone's been squatting or just visiting the property if you visit from time to time.聽 It'd be a good idea to take some time-stamped selfies in and around it, in case you need to demonstrate that you were there on a regular basis, thereby making it harder for someone else to claim that they were.

Good advice!

It would need to be a desperate soul indeed to squat in the house. Even by the most basic of standards it's unliveable, and the water and electricity aren't connected.

More likely is a neighbour "borrowing" some of the land.

@janemulberry

We had someone move themselves into our abandoned house but the neighbors alerted us and then we called and paid for SOT.

How bad a shape was the house in when the squatters moved in? And how hard was it to get them out? Maybe I'm too optimistic thinking no one would be desperate enough to want to live in our older wreck, which really is in rather bad shape.

The main house in the village centre is liveable and could definitely appeal to squatters, but people would know and tell me straight away if anyone moved in.

Getting squatters out of village houses is usually fairly easy.聽 They'll almost always be members of the local ethnic minority, and some of the "local lads" would be happy to persuade them to move somewhere healthier for them if you were to make it worth their while.聽 Alternatively, you could talk to whichever SOT company covers your area about signing a pest-control contract.... 馃槑聽

Going through the courts is an expensive and time-consuming process, and getting judgements enforced is very difficult..

O-kaaaay. Got it. I have the feeling I know just the local who'd be happy to be "persuasive" if needed. Hopefully, never needed!

There's a new (to me at least) site with quite a few properties advertised here: pazarluk(dot)com/sc/nedvijimi-imoti-za-prodajba/nedvijimi-imoti-prodajbi-kasti-i-vili?currency=eu

Some are cheap, others pretty expensive/overpriced, but it's still worth keeping an eye on...

@JimJ

Thought it was a BOGOFF then !! hahahah x

@VillageLife

Hi what is SOT ? is it a security of sorts ? claire x

Hi Claire, yes, a SOT is a security service.

I hope that it's obvious but in Cyrillic "SOT" is 小袨孝 馃槑

There's a number of Roma squatters in our village but they move on when the actual owner wants to demolish the house they're in and build a new house. This happened to the house across the lane from ours , the family who actually owned the house and land live and work in Germany and the building works have stopped now maybe they'll restart when it's summer and the owners have saved a聽 bit more money.聽 Meanwhile I heard that the Mayor of any village knows which homes people can squat in their village.

Meanwhile I heard that the Mayor of any village knows which homes people can squat in their village. - @Kath948381

I'm not sure what you mean by that.聽 The local mayor may know which houses are empty/unoccupied, especially in a smaller village, but they'd be very unwise to suggest or tell anyone that they can squat in them.聽 The chances of a "normal Bulgarian" mayor giving such information to Roma are anyway pretty slim, unless the vast majority of the electorate there are gypsies..

Our village has many Roma family's living in it but most are working . I've never heard of a Mayor telling people where they can squat but it's just something that I heard can happen SK maybe I was wrong to pass on this information. I stand corrected maybe.

@janemulberry

Well it was actually in really bad shape, but its in the ideal centre of a largish town so I guess it's appealing.

Yes, that would make it more appealing for sure, but luckily also more likely to attract attention to the fact someone was squatting in it!

@janemulberry

Hahaha yes - spot on! That's the only reason we found out.