Communicated on 22 September 2020 Published on 12 October 2020

FOURTH SECTION

Application no. 67380/14 Tsvetana Nedyalkova ILIEVA and Plamen Georgiev ILIEV against Bulgaria lodged on 9 October 2014

STATEMENT OF FACTS

The applicants, Ms Tsvetana Nedyalkova Ilieva and Mr Plamen Georgiev Iliev , are Bulgarian nationals who were born in 1939 and 1964 respectively and live in Sofia. They are represented before the Court by Mr D. Ganev, a lawyer practising in Sofia.

The facts of the case, as submitted by the applicants, may be summarised as follows.

The applicants were the owners of a plot of land on the outskirts of Sofia, on the strength of a restitution decision issued on 21 June 1999. The plot, measuring 3,530 square metres, was described in the decision at issue as a fourth-category “field”.

In a decision of 21 December 2013 the Council of Ministers expropriated 3,479 square metres of the applicants ’ land, as well as other land in the area, for the construction of a section of the ring road around Sofia. The decision stated that the applicants would receive monetary compensation in the amount of 2,843 Bulgarian levs (BGN), equivalent to 1,454 euros (EUR), or BGN 0.82 (EUR 0.42) per square metre.

The applicants applied for a judicial review of the expropriation decision, arguing in particular that the compensation awarded to them was too low.

The Supreme Administrative Court appointed an expert to calculate the market value of the land. The expert submitted a report on 5 June 2014. He listed two contracts concluded within the period to be taken into account concerning land in the same zone – a sale contract, where land had been sold in 2012 for about BGN 25 (EUR 13) per square metre, and a contract where a plot of land had been included in the capital of a company.

The Supreme Administrative Court gave a judgment on 19 June 2014. It found that only one plot, the one sold for BGN 25 (EUR 13) per square metre, could qualify as comparable to the one expropriated from the applicants. As to the other plot discussed by the expert, it could not be considered comparable, since the respective contract was not among the types of transaction provided for by section 1a( 2) of the supplementary provisions of the State Property Act.

Accordingly, since only one comparable plot had been found and it was insufficient to establish an average market value of the expropriated land, the amount of compensation had to be calculated in accordance with the Regulation on the calculation of the value of agricultural land . As that had been the method used by the Council of Ministers when expropriating the applicants ’ land and awarding them the equivalent of BGN 0.82 (EUR 0.42) per square metre in compensation, the application for a judicial review of that decision had no merit.

In December 2014 the Council of Ministers took a decision to seek settlement in the cases pending before the Supreme Administrative Court, concerning agricultural land expropriated for the construction of the ring road on the strength of the decision of 21 December 2013. It was decided that the maximum compensation to be proposed to the expropriated owners would be BGN 20.05 (EUR 10) per square metre.

The relevant domestic law and practice have been described in Kostov and Others v. Bulgaria (nos. 66581/12 and 25054/15, § 23-38, 14 May 2020).

COMPLAINT

The applicants complain under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 that the compensation awarded to them when their land was expropriated was too low.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

Did the deprivation of the applicants ’ of their property comply with the requirements of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1? In particular, was the compensation awarded to them reasonably related to their expropriated land ’ s value (see Kostov and Others v. Bulgaria , nos. 66581/12 and 25054/15, 14 May 2020)?