In the past few decades, Romania has become a hub for foreigners who want to purchase a house or an apartment in the midst of the beautiful Romanian capital. However, many are afraid of the famous bureaucratic system of Romania that they will have to go through in the process of buying or selling an apartment in this country. At the same time, many are afraid of the language barrier that may exist when trying to understand what documents they need to submit in order for the transaction to be legal. In order to help you get an idea of the documents you will need and to save you a lot of time and money, we comprised a list of all the steps you must take and the documents you will need to have when buying or selling an apartment in Romania. Without further ado, here they are:

1. Deciding on a price for the apartment

If you are selling an apartment, decide on a reasonable price to attract customers, but also make sure you make a profit. In recent years, average price for an apartment increased by 10-20 percent. The key is analyzing the market and understanding the price that others are selling their apartments for.

2. The paperwork needed

Here comes the ”fun” part. There are many documents you will need to have with you or obtain from various Romanian institutions. Here they are, listed:

• Your ID card, both a copy, as well as the original;
• The marriage certificate or the divorce sentencing, both a copy as well as the original;
• The documents that show that you own the apartment. Here we can count a contract of sale, an order from the court, a donation contract and so on;
• The cadastral plan and the real estate registration in the real estate registry (Cadastru);
• Real estate register excerpt that shows how many properties you have in your name, including the apartment you are currently trying to sell. This excerpt is given to you by the notary which will validate your sales contract from the Cadastral Office and it is valid for 5 days after the notary applied to receive it;
• A fiscal certificate which is released by the Office of Local Taxes from the county or sector where your apartment is located. This certificate is valid for 30 days after it was released;
• If your apartment is located in a block of flats, then you will also need a certificate from the association of all those living in the block of flats. This certificate essentially confirms the fact that you paid all your bills on time and that the new owner will not be forced to pay some of your previous bills;
• The last document you will need is a document that attests the energetic performance of the building where your apartment is located. In order to do this, you must talk to an expert in this field who will then analyze the apartment and issue a document that will attest the energetic performance of the building and where he or she will also recommend various ways of improving this performance and of saving money on the bills;

3. Settling on a price and signing the pre-contract

After you gathered all the documents listed above and after finding a buyer, you must settle on a price and sign the pre-contract. The pre-contract is basically a document signed by both parties where they agree on:

• The money sum that will later be paid by the buyer to the seller;
• The manner in which the money sum will be transferred from one party to the other;
• The date when the official contract will be signed;
• The date when the seller will leave the apartment and the buyer can move on;
• The advance sum that the buyer must pay for the apartment;

Make sure you sign the pre-contract in the presence of a public notary and do not hand over the original papers to the buyer! Never trust a person with your original documents on the apartment. They are very hard to gather them all after that, not to mention very time consuming and expensive.

So there you have it, these are the main documents that you need to have with you if you plan to sell your apartment. Likewise, if you want to buy an apartment, makes sure you ask the seller to provide you will all of these because each document has its own purpose and you don’t want to wake up with surprises down the road.