Published on 3 January 2022
FOURTH SECTION
Application no. 40063/19
Veska Ivanova DOBREVA-JONSSON
against Bulgaria
lodged on 20 July 2019
communicated on 9 December 2021
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the delayed provision of compensation to the applicant for her parents’ property which was expropriated by the municipal authorities of Dobrich in 1985 for urban development. Initially, the applicant’s parents were to be compensated with a flat in a building the authorities intended to construct. By a supplementary order of 3 November 2009 the mayor determined compensation with a three-room flat in another building. However, the construction of the building was never finalised, after in 2014 the municipal authorities cancelled a public procurement procedure for its completion. Since 2016 the applicant has been housed in a one-room municipal dwelling, for which she does not pay rent. She has filed petitions to the municipal authorities, but no compensation had been provided to her by the time of lodging of the application to the Court. She complains under Article 1 Protocol No. 1 and Article 13 of the Convention.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
1. Was the compensation procedure in the case excessively lengthy, and has this resulted in a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (see Kirilova and Others v. Bulgaria, nos. 42908/98 and 3 others, 9 June 2005; Lazarov v. Bulgaria, no. 21352/02, 22 May 2008; Antonovi v. Bulgaria, no. 20827/02, 1 October 2009)? Did the applicant have at her disposal an effective domestic remedy for her complaint under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, as required by Article 13 of the Convention? To what extent were the delays in the procedure imputable to the authorities? In particular, could the applicant bring about the conclusion of the procedure on an earlier date, by requesting to receive another property in compensation, in accordance with section 103(5) of the Territorial and Urban Planning Act, or financial compensation, as provided for after 2001 pursuant to section 9(1) of the transitional provisions of the Territorial Planning Act (see Velyov and Dimitrov v. Bulgaria (dec.) [Committee], no. 64570/10, §§ 27-31, 20 September 2016, and Petrovi v. Bulgaria [Committee], no. 26759/12, §§ 25-29, 2 February 2017)? In that connection, at what point in time did the applicant become aware that the construction of the flat due to her would not be completed?