Romania plans another national fund for property restitution, with landplots and forestry as main assets
This fund will receive from 2014 agricultural and forestry land of some 3.6 million hectares, which are now owned by the state via public institutions, agricultural research centers, among others. The new restitution procedure seems to be complicated enough to raise issues, according to pundits, who see another high risk of intermediaries ending up with the properties, similarly to what happened in Fondul Proprietatea's case in 2005, when it was set up. As the procedure was long and complicated, actual owners entitled to restitution preferred to sell their restitution files to intermediaries, who ended up as shareholders in the fund.
The new system is currently a legislative project and the Government led by Victor Ponta is preparing to assume responsibility for the project towards the end of March. Former owners entitled to restitution compensation will be able to use their points from 2016 onwards to buy other agricultural properties.
One point is worth RON 1, and a new commission, the National Commission for Compensating Building Owners, which will be under the Prime Minister's auspices, will decide how much money, hence points, a former owner stands to receive, and how many points a landplot or a forest area is worth. If former owners choose not to use their points to buy properties, they will receive cash from 2017, in installments, over seven years.
According to Ziarul Financiar, the value of the properties the Government wants to include in this new national fund is some EUR 10 billion, higher than the EUR 4 billion stakes in the Fondul Proprietatea, which makes Romania the only country which stands to compensate former owners with such high amounts.
editor@romania-insider.com