Basically, anyone can own an apartment, you don’t need to be a resident. However, with each apartment there is a small patch of land, normally a square metre or so underneath the block, which you cannot own as a non-resident.

A lot of estate agents/websites will tell you that ‘foreigners can’t buy land in Romania unless they do so through a company’. This was true until 2007 but now it isn’t. A lot of the agents don’t seem to know this, or perhaps they prefer to ignore the changes in the law because they can charge the purchaser an extra 1-2000 Euro for setting up said company. Even many notary publics aren’t aware of the new rules, so you have to shop around to find one who does and who’ll process your land purchase.

Basically, the Romanian legislation states that non-Romanians who are not resident in Romania, but who are EU citizens, may not buy land until 2012. What this essentially means is that an EU citizen who is a legal resident of Romania CAN buy land at the moment. It then goes on to define a legal resident as “a foreigner who has the right of residence on Romanian territory”, in other words, an EU citizen holding a certificate of residence.

Thus, if you hold a passport from an EU country, and apply for the certificate mentioned in the above article, then the notary public is obligated to accept any land transactions completed in your name.

Obviously, buying land as a ‘persoana fizica’ is far more convenient than doing so as a company, which involves many more costs, taxes and adminstrative headaches (regardless of what the estate agents tell you). As the purchaser YOU have the right to choose the notary public, so it’s simple enough to ask around till you find one who is more familar with the most recent property laws.

Anyone not from an EU country, or not able to prove that they live in Romania, would still have to purchase the land through a company.

I’m happy to research into buying property but it’s not something I have any personal experience with. I’ll see what I can find out.

Do you happen to know how long the certificate of residence is valid for? I read somewhere that it is valid indefinitely, but I would like to be sure.

Another useful post might be one on the rights of foreigners to purchase property as that is frequently misrepresented (particularly by estate agents who want to earn a little each setting up a company for the house purchaser).