Real Estate Newsletter No. 2/2015
Law supplementing article 6 of Law no. 165/2013 with respect to the measures for finalizing the restitution in kind or compensation of the immovables abusively confiscated during the communist regime in Romania, published in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 473 / 30.06.2015
For the purpose of restitutiing the lands in accordance with the law, the State Domains Agency and the National Authority for Property Restitution are entitled to initiate the legal proceedings to change the legal status of the State-owned lands by transferring them, as per the legislation, into the private property of the State.
Exempt from the above legal procedures are the agricultural land areas indispensable to activities of research-development- innovation and multiplication of plant and animal biological material, of public interest, provided in Appendices no. 1 to 5 and 7 to Law no. 45/2009 with respect to the organization and functioning of the Academy of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences “Gheorghe Ionescu-Şişeşti» and to the research and development system in the agricultural, forestry and food industries, as subsequently amended and supplemented.
Law approving Government Ordinance no. 7/2010 amending and supplementing Government Ordinance no. 43/1997 regarding the roads regime, published in the Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 529 / 07.16.2015
The underground public utility works shall be developped outside the road footprint, outside the safety area of public road or in accessible galleries. Construction, repair and maintenance of these works in the perimeter of public roads shall be made with the approval of the road administrator and in compliance with the applicable legislation in force.
Under the new provisions, the works for public utilities in the extramuros, other than those referred to above, shall be developed outside the safety areas and only with the road administrator’s prior consent and with the authorization for emplacement and/or acces in the public road area.
As a general principle, construction or improvement of access ways to roads open to public traffic shall be executed as per the legislation in force, based on the prior consent and the authorization for emplacement and/or acces in the public road area issued by the public road administrator and with the endorsement of the traffic police.
In addition, it is provided in the new regulation that holders of constructions, facilities, access ways, installations or of any other objectives located near public roads are required to perform periodic inspections and repairs to ensure the aesthetics, road protection and traffic safety.
Law no. 10/1995 on quality in constructions was republished in the Official Gazette no. 689 of 11.09.2015
Under the new provisions, residential units with ground floor, residential units with ground floor plus one floor and annexes located in the country side and in villages belonging to towns, as well as temporary buildings, are no longer exempt from compliance with the provisions of this law.
The verification of the projects with respect to compliance with the technical regulations regarding the the basic requirements shall be carried out by specialized project verificators certified for domains / subdomains and specialities, other than the specialists who drafted the projects.
Also, the certified project verificator may not verify and stamp its own projects, the projects in the drafting of which it participated or the projects for which it drafted the technical expertise report in the capacity of certified technical expert.
Another amendment to the republished law consists in the obligation of the designers and of technical and professional certified or licensed specialists to conclude professional liability insurances, valid throughout the period of the exercise of the right to practice. This provision comes into force in 12 months as of the entry into force of the present law.
It is provided that investors or owners are obliged to transfer to the State Inspectorate for Constructions – ISC an amount equivalent to 0.5% of the authorized value, without VAT, of the works for new constructions and intervention works at the existing constructions for which building/demolishion permits are issued, except for the investors/owners who performed intervention works for consolidation of residential buildings classified as Ist rank seismic risk.
