There are a few types of buildings in Bulgaria and they are made of a few types of material. There was no building standards until the 1970s and many of the buildings can be questionable.
Older rural property.
Older homes tend to be in fair conditions and you will find common problems, some are terminal and some repairable and maybe a quick fix.
Wall cracks and leaning walls.
Depending on what type of build it is, you would find that in most cases the walls are not tied, this is typically the end of the walls.
Cracks normally occur on “Trimmer” buildings as they are a timber frame with brick infill. this is usually settlement, damp, or earthquake damage. at worse it could be a rotted frame.
Bricks tend to be softer that English bricks and I am talking about the solid bricks, there are also porcelain bricks which tend to hold up well and are in more modern buildings. Then there are the mud bricks. These are very susceptible to water damage.
If you look at a wall, you will notice they are solid walls and they also have aligned layers, which of course leads to cracking.
Slippage,
It is fairly common to see slip in houses around Bulgaria, they are houses that are subject to land movement and often the houses are not built with a understanding.
A house I looked at was nice looking and they hide the crack along the extension. on inspection, the whole side of the house was a problem, and it transpires that they build next to a large septic tank that had collapsed.
Not only does this illustrate the problems, but the lack of understanding, as many buildings have “variable foundations”.
Roof fails
Roof fails are fairly common, if you have a roof and holes, this will be “normally” around the chimney stack, due to flashing issues, of the valleys of the roof as it may have no trays, or a slipped tile or cracked tile. You will normally find damage from trees and bushes on the house.
In Bulgaria they have “modern roofs” but they are usually what’s called a cold roof with what looks like windows in the sides. They don’t have under layers and sometime the tiles are not even attached to battens, but sunk a little into mud. You can sometimes find houses with planks under the tiles ( also with our without battens.
The odd roof design comes for a lack of experience in roofing and the hotch potch is down to what is called a “bastard hip”. These are caused by off set walls and different angles( pitches) on the roofs.
Legal delay.
You may find that buying a house is a bit of a chore when there are more than one owner. The houses are usually owned from a few generations ago and have been handed down to the generations, this means that there can be a number of owners.
All owners have to agree, and all owners have to be present in order to sign he dotted line in person ( or power of attorney). As you can imagine this can be a bit of a nightmare, so you could have to waste your time until everyone is available.
Expect hidden issues.
If a house is not lived in, its going to have problems, imagine a steel pipe that damp in the ground, that’s sat there for 15 years, imagine that’s your water pipe. Water is a bit of a issue in Bulgaria and they don’t often have waste water. Your well may run dry, and you may have contaminants.
Rotten timbers, damp (rising) and no insulation. blocked drainage, broken boundarys. out of date documents for the property and a host of other things.
If its really good.
Your agent will have done the required checks of the property to ensure it has no debts of leans/levies. You should be able to place a deposit or buy the property in a day or three.
