Bulgaria Ski discussion board

I've been receiving a few alerts from this site to an topic I started back in 2010. Basically anyone dealing with Britannia needs to cut their loses and forget Bulgaria. I lost £10k, my property should have been completed in March 2010, not even the footings were laid! I was later contacted by Britannia as were other buyers offering an apartment in one of their other block that hadn't sold, in fact a slightly better property. In exchange for the balance of what I would have paid for the original, which in my case was 26k. I thought about it but on reflection of other promises, a new airport to cut transfer down to less than an hour, doubling the pistes in excess of 100K, non of which happened. 26K would by me at least one ski holiday a year for the next 25 years so I cut my losses. I have now purchased in France, yes its dearer but its built, door to door in 7 hours.

On the subject of Bulgarian solicitor, whilst great at translating and offering to help e sue Britannia for breach of contract which cost me another 5k, whilst I was likely to win I was unlikely to get any money back. In reality why would we want support a country thats so corrupt even down to the local councils, the government wont do anything about it so get out !

Chris, your story is very sad and I hear so many stories along the same lines. Trust me 10K is small compared to some of the losses people have suffered.

Many developers went belly up as the global property markets crashed and many many people lost a huge amount of money. It wasnt just in Bulgaria but all over the place - Bulgaria had a large number though because of the number of new developments being constructed during the property boom which happened after BG joined the European Union. Greedy developers stretched themselves to the max and had the next complex being sold 'off plan' to fund the current one under construction.

The only people who did OK were those whose properties were best parts complete or at least had act16 so they could be used and/or rented out. And those investors are now sitting on properties worth a fraction of what they purchased them for and hoping one day property prices might go up a little and a resale market develop! If we only knew then what we know now......

(I know YOU know all this... just thought I'd fill in any people who didn't.)

It is always sad when people have lost large sums of money especially so when it may well have been life savings lost on the expectation of fulfilling a dream...

Buying of plan always carries a risk even in the UK, but it would appear that buying off plan in Bulgaria is a no no, as Chris says you have the law on your side, but if the developer goes bust all you are doing is lining the pockets of lawyers.

Sadly the large numbers of cases of this have had a detrimental affect on Bulgaria, the cases on UK television must have affected the tourist industry and the confidence to invest in what still seems to be a corrupt system, or at the very least poorly regulated.

As oil prices continue to rise causing flight prices to increase substantially over the coming years the distance from the UK makes it to great a risk in my opinion.

The information was always there, even ten years ago, permissions allowing construction are public knowledge and easily accessible through the municipal offices.. The original plans to build in Bansko allowed for nearly 60,000 additional beds, on top of existing hotel and apartment accomadation, in two stages.. To date approximately 19,000 have been built, with old permissions now lapsed, any perspective developer is now looking at part complete complexes as the permissions still stand.. The market has risen, driven by mostly Russian buyers, but still the price is low, or in my opinion, more realistic... The market driven madness that was Bansko 5 years or more ago bordered on insanity, the shallow promises of agents (mostly commission based, and English/Irish/Scottish) were mostly eaten up by prospective buyers, whose eyes were blinded by the shine of MONEY! or the promise of it.. Massive profits, buy five, flip three, buy the other two outright... five commissions for the salesman, luvly jubly... Im sorry, anyone in their right mind who is parting with 40,000E or more would surely check things out, the proposed airport at Dupnitsa was a plan, but was refused a licence for commercial aircraft on the first application by the Europeon CA on the grounds of poor fog record, and being on the edge of the highest and largest range of mountains in the Balkan Peninsula... the massive overbuild in Bansko was on public record, the mountain struggling to contain 15,000 skiers, where was there any possibility of any rental potential with up to 60,000 additional beds ?... the prices that were being paid outperformed the capital Sofia by almost double, the capital where surely there is the best rental potential and growth...
Permissions for ski expansion were always going to be difficult within a national park, but the talk of connecting Dobriniste, Bansko and Kulinoto were pie in the sky, purely from the logistics, there are blooming great big mountains in the way, if the permission for a new piste is difficult, an ariel cabin will be impossible...

Where are we today ? the fly by night agents have gone, developers have realised that the gravy train has ended (or their banks have) and they are having to look at fresh fields if they can, astute money is buying up part completes for peanuts, and offering affordable second homes to Bulgarians/Russians/Greeks/Romanians.. and English... The airport was never going to happen, but the carriageway scheme from the existing end at Dolna Dikanya 27km outside of Sofia to eventually Thessoloniki that will pass Simitli where we turn to the mountains for the last 40km will be complete in four years, the first section from Dolna Dikanya to Dupnitsa looking not far off completion now.. possibly with the new road and a 120km limit the transfer time will be well below two hours (at legal limits, one hour if its a BG driver)
Rezoning of development areas within the Pirin national park would allow for piste expansion, this comes into force in 2013, and was voted through government last Christmas.. not saying there will be more, but it would be possible...
And lastly, the new laws, the most important of which allows for EU citizens to own land and property in their own names in Bulgaria, this has effected the purchasing proceedure and now there is a lot more protection, and inevitably more paperwork.. but as we experienced this year, with a good lawyer who is also beholden by law to you (if they mess up, they pay) the whole thing took around two months...
I do feel sorry for people who lost money, but it was a risk, a punt to speak, and in that there was always the possibility that it could go wrong... big money people have lost here, an Irishman i was speaking to walked away from a 150,000E investment, admitting he was sucked in by the talk, his accountant asked him 'if he had bought a secondhand car, he surely would have driven it first' Hindsight is a wonderful thing....