THIRD SECTION
DECISION
Application no. 52180/21
Yordanka Vasileva STOYANOVA
against Bulgaria
The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting on 6 May 2025 as a Committee composed of:
Peeter Roosma, President,
Diana Kovatcheva,
Canòlic Mingorance Cairat, judges,
and Olga Chernishova, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 52180/21) against the Republic of Bulgaria lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 19 October 2021 by a Bulgarian national, Ms Yordanka Vasileva Stoyanova (“the applicant”), who was born in 1964, lives in Pazardzhik and was represented by Mr V. Stoyanov, a lawyer practising in Pazardzhik;
the decision to give notice of the complaint under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 concerning the adequacy of the compensation for the applicant’s expropriated property to the Bulgarian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Ms V. Hristova from the Ministry of Justice, and to declare inadmissible the remainder of the application;
the parties’ observations;
Having deliberated, decides as follows:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The application concerns a complaint, of the type examined in Kostov and Others v. Bulgaria (nos. 66581/12 and 25054/15, 14 May 2020), that the compensation awarded to the applicant for her land expropriated for public needs was too low.
2. The applicant owned a one-sixth share of a plot of land measuring 164 sq. m, situated in the central part of Plovdiv. The plot was expropriated for the construction of a street in several decisions of the mayor of the city. As concerns the applicant’s share, the relevant decision was taken on 24 January 2023. The compensation awarded amounted to 12,600 Bulgarian levs (BGN), equivalent to 6,445 euros (EUR), also equivalent to BGN 461 (EUR 236) per square metre.
3. The sum above was calculated by an expert appointed by the municipality, in accordance with the requirements of the Municipal Property Act. The expert identified seventy-two plots of land sold during a previous period and meeting the statutory requirements to qualify as market comparable, and then selected eight of them, most similar to that of the applicant, to calculate the average price of BGN 461 as indicated above. The expert noted also that since the 1960s the applicant’s plot had been designated for the construction of a street in several urban development plans, and had retained this designation in the plan currently in force, adopted in 2014.
4. The expropriation decision was upheld in judicial-review proceedings initiated by the applicant, which were concluded with a final judgment of the Plovdiv Administrative Court of 8 June 2023. That court appointed an expert to recalculate the value of the applicant’s land, but as the new calculations showed a lower value, the initial expropriation decision was kept in force as lawful and valid.
THE COURT’S ASSESSMENT
5. The applicant complained under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention, considering the level of compensation too low.
6. The relevant domestic law and practice and the criteria concerning the adequacy of compensation under the State Property Act, which contains rules with regard to such compensation similar to those in the Municipal Property Act, have been described in Kostov and Others (cited above). In particular, the Court reiterated that the taking of property without payment of an amount reasonably related to its value would normally constitute a disproportionate interference, and that the amount of compensation had to be calculated on the basis of the value of the property at the date on which ownership of it was lost (ibid., §§ 62-63).
7. In Kostov and Others, the compensation awarded to the applicants had been calculated on the basis of Government-adopted formulas, as there had been an insufficient number of transactions with similar properties. Later on the Court examined other cases of this type, where, as in the present case, the compensation had been calculated on the basis of previous transactions. The Court reiterated in these cases that it would still find the taking of the applicants’ property a disproportionate measure if the applicants had reasonably shown that the market value of their land could have been significantly higher than the compensation calculated at the domestic level. In particular, it criticised the domestic authorities for not taking due account of the individual characteristics of the applicants’ land, and considered that the applicable domestic rules lacked the necessary flexibility (see Hristova and Others v. Bulgaria [Committee], no. 56681/15, §§ 17-18, 5 September 2023; Nevada Tours 2004 AD and Bulgarian Tourist Company Global Tours AD v. Bulgaria [Committee], nos. 4173/20 and 6186/20, §§ 14-16, 10 September 2024; Madzharov v. Bulgaria [Committee], no. 5113/20, §§ 12-14, 5 November 2024).
8. As in those previous cases, the Court therefore has to assess in the present case, in light of the submissions of the parties, whether it has been reasonably shown that the market value of the applicant’s land could have been significantly higher than the compensation awarded at the domestic level.
9. As indicated above, that compensation equalled BGN 461 (EUR 236) per square metre. The expropriated land is situated in the central part of Plovdiv.
10. In order to justify the level of compensation, the Government pointed out that it had been reached in accordance with the rules of the Municipal Property Act, namely on the basis of previous transactions with similar land, that the applicant’s land had been designated for the construction of a street, and that the applicant’s objections to the level of compensation were “too general”.
11. The applicant, for her part, argued that the transactions used to calculate the compensation (see paragraph 3 above) had been “between connected persons”, concerned plots already constructed upon, ones “whose potential for construction had been exhausted”, which were “situated almost outside of the city”, or which were “much worse situated”. She stated that she had talked with real estate agents, according to whom the whole plot’s value was “not less than BGN 750,000” (which would equal about BGN 4,500 per square metre).
12. The applicant also submitted a tender notice released by the Plovdiv Municipality at about the same time when the value of her plot had been calculated, concerning another plot of land, for sale with an initial price equivalent of BGN 1,624 (EUR 830) per square metre. According to the applicant, that other plot was “much worse situated”, “not on a central boulevard”, and was “only for residential construction”.
13. The Court agrees with the Government that the applicant’s arguments put forward to contest the level of compensation awarded to her are too general. As concerns the plots of land subject to previous transactions selected by the municipality-appointed expert, she makes unspecified and unproven claims (see paragraph 11 above), which are insufficient to cast doubt on what appears to be a careful selection of comparable plots on the part of the expert (see paragraph 3 above). The applicant’s additional arguments are also general and, on the whole, unsubstantiated. In particular, as concerns the public tender, the applicant has not provided information on its outcome, or more specifically as to why she considered the plot of land concerned by it inferior to hers. It should also be noted that the applicant’s plot of land had been designated for the construction of a street ever since the 1960s (see paragraph 3 above), which undoubtedly reflected on its market value and development prospectives.
14. The applicant has not thus sufficiently substantiated her claim that the compensation calculated under the Municipal Property Act was not reasonably related to the market value of her expropriated share (see, for a similar conclusion, Kuzmanova and Ivanov v. Bulgaria [Committee], no. 56289/19, §§ 10-12, 9 May 2023).
15. Accordingly, unlike the situation in the cases cited in paragraph 7 above, and in accordance with the standard indicated in paragraph 8, it cannot be said that the interference with the applicant’s rights under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 was disproportionate.
16. In view of the above and in the light of all the material in its possession, the Court finds that the application is manifestly ill-founded and must be rejected in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4 of the Convention.
For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,
Declares the application inadmissible.
Done in English and notified in writing on 27 May 2025.
Olga Chernishova Peeter Roosma
Deputy Registrar President