Estimation of compensation for expropriation based on the market value and not the assessment of the tax office. No payment of compensation to the beneficiaries for 30 years.
JUDGMENT
Kopankovi v. Bulgaria 06.09.2018 (no. 48929/12)
PRINCIPAL FACTS
The case concerned a Bulgarian family’s complaint that property they had owned in Kazanlak had
been expropriated without compensation.
The applicants are Lyudmil Kopankov, Miroslav Kopankov, Stanka Kopankova, and Stanislav
Kopankov. They are Bulgarian nationals who were born in 1941, 1974, 1941, and 1967, respectively,
and live in Kazanlak and Sofia, in Bulgaria.
Stanislav Kopankov, the fourth applicant, co-owned a house in Kazanlak with his grandmother,
where he lived with the remaining applicants.
In 1988 the mayor decided to expropriate the property in order to construct a residential building.
The decision stipulated that Mr Kopankov and his grandmother would receive two flats in
compensation. However, 20 years later they had still not obtained the flats, despite repeatedly
petitioning the local authorities.
They therefore turned to the courts to quash the expropriation and restore their property to them.
The courts ruled in their favour, but in the meantime the applicants had moved out of the Kazanlak
house and the house had been pulled down. They therefore brought a tort action against the local
authorities, claiming the part of the property which could not be returned to them, namely the
house and other parts of the property, including trees, the pavement and outbuildings. Their claim
was however dismissed in 2012 because general tort provisions did not apply.
Relying in particular on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property), the applicants
complained that they had been unable to receive compensation for their expropriated property
since 1988.
THE DECISION OF THE COURT
Violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1
Just satisfaction: EUR 20,870 to Lyudmil Kopankov for pecuniary damage, EUR 2,000 to each
applicant for non-pecuniary damage, and EUR 4,615 to the applicants for costs and expenses(echrcaselaw.com editing).