At present on the territory of Republic of Bulgaria more than 3 and a half thousand of officially registered real estate agencies work. Having such a variety there still haven’t been introduced activity regulations for agencies and real-estate brokers. This led to the situation when each agent can decide for himself what services to provide, what information to give and what work with clients to choose. It doesn’t always give the best results. Clients loose the faith in Bulgarian agencies and eventually it spoils the reputation of those agencies which pay attention to their clients and do their best to provide services of high quality.
The goal to stop this situation was undertaken by the National Union of real estate and Bulgarian Institute for Standardization. They are occupied now with introduction of “European standard for providing services by agents, selling immovable property”. It is planned to be accepted in Bulgaria in 2009. The standard itself was developed within the European level during 3 years period with the help of specialists from 30 countries and it will be acknowledged on the international level.
It is necessary to adopt the standard and new regulations due to the increasing and international contract trading number and volume. The aim of this standard is introduction of terminology equal to all the agencies (for example clear definition what is a two-room flat and what is a three-room flat), common regulations and qualification requirements to brokers.
Beside the rights of the consumers and sellers will be worked out on detail as well as the information that should be given to the both sides.
According to the standard mentioned high above the agents should have a wild range of knowledge. They should know basic technologies in construction, energy effectiveness, they should be able to read and understand town and country plans, cadastral and topographic maps as well as architectural projects. They should have up-to-date information about taxes under the Bulgarian law and should know the ways of obtaining a credit. Shortly, real state agents have to pay close attention to the technical aspects of the projects which they offer.
With a view to the future introduction of the European standard in Bulgaria the national conference was held on the 17-th of October 2008 in the hall “Sredets” in the “Sheraton Sophia Hotel Balkan”. The theme of the conference was “European requirements to the services of real state agents”. The conference was held under the patronage of Ivailo Kalfin, vice-premier and Minister of Foreign Affairs of republic of Bulgaria.
On the conference the lectors described mechanisms which work on real estate markets in some countries, the members of EU. They also spoke about the standards being developed on the European level.
The chairman of the National Union of real estate also raised a question about creating of a public register in the sphere of real estate selling. Public discussion between the parties concerned was qualified as the main instrument for creating effective legal framework. It is because adopting of every law without meeting interests of subjects would be harmful. It is expected that the result of such an introduction will be natural selection of the agencies. Only those agencies will survive that mainly focus on the quality of their services.
