Moldova apartments left without legal status
Nearly 4,000 apartments in Moldova have been left without legal status. People live in them, but cannot register ownership rights.
Citizens have lived in these homes for years, yet they are unable to formally register their property. The government has acknowledged the problem, while the exact figures were presented by Infrastructure and Regional Development Minister Vladimir Bolea during public consultations on a bill aimed at strengthening the regulatory framework in urban planning.
According to Bolea, the issue affects at least 8,000 people.
The minister stressed that these are not minor technical errors. People invested tens of thousands of euros “not two lei, but honestly earned money”, as he put it only to fall victim to fraudsters and dishonest developers.
These developers registered properties in the cadastre that did not match the project on the basis of which the construction permit had been issued. They then sold apartments with incorrect or contradictory cadastral data.
Legal deadlock for residents
The situation is especially complicated because, formally, construction may even have taken place on the basis of court decisions. At the same time, urban planning rules were bypassed.
This created a legal deadlock. People live in their apartments, but cannot sell them, pass them on as inheritance or obtain proper insurance.
Bolea said responsibility for such schemes should also fall on those who handled the registration.
His comments came during hearings on a draft law designed to tighten regulations in the construction sector.
The minister cited Japan as an example: “In 50-storey buildings, people do not run outside during an earthquake. That is what real construction safety means.”
According to him, Moldova must move away from a system in which honest developers depend on a particular official or ministerial intervention. The law, he said, must be applied strictly and equally to everyone.
Many affected homes are in Chișinău
Many of the apartments where affected residents live are located in apartment blocks built over the past 10–15 years, especially in Chișinău municipality and its suburbs.
At the same time, according to publicly available information, none of the dishonest developers involved in such schemes has yet been held criminally liable.
For now, state assistance is limited to discussions about future legislative changes. The draft law does not offer a mechanism to legalise housing for citizens who have already been affected.
It is difficult not to recall rumours that PAS plans to nominate the infrastructure minister as a candidate for mayor of Chișinău.
Could the public discussion of this law, and Bolea’s sudden interest in the fate of capital residents who bought homes from dishonest developers allegedly protected by the same PAS party, be part of the minister’s pre-election publicity?
