During the first nine month of 2007, 245 illegally constructed buildings were demolished, either voluntarily or through compulsory demolition, according to the latest assessment of the National Construction Control Directorate (NCCD). NCCD press officer, Tsvetelina Ivanova told The Sofia Echo on December 12 that different types and sizes of buildings had been demolished, including some large three-storey buildings.

On November 22 Bulgarian language-business news website Expert.bg published an article titled `Owners voluntarily demolish their illegal hotels'.

"Owner of Andji hotel in the Lipov Kladenets neighbourhood near Varna started to voluntarily demolish the building," the article said.

The hotel was one of the six buildings, all of them related to tourism, which the NCCD had issued demolition orders for. All of the buildings were constructed without the necessary construction papers, investment projects and without a prepared Detailed Organisational Plan.

Three one-storey buildings, a three-storey hotel, a huge two-storey construction and a set of foundations were planned for demolition. "Some of the building have already been demolished voluntarily by the owner (including Andji hotel)," Ivanova said. However, one of the buildings is now undergoing further investigation regarding its planning documentation she said and has had its demolition order temporarily suspended.

All six buildings were inspected in February 2007, while the orders to pull them down were issued on November 15.

Earlier this year, in June 2007, Expert.bg said that some of the most attractive hotels in the Black Sea resort Slunchev Bryag (Sunny Beach) were also awaiting demolition "if the state fulfilled its threats".

These buildings included the Dune hotel, which is one of the so-called boutique hotels. It is owned by Maya Ilieva, wife of Georgi Iliev who was murdered in 2006.

According to NCCD, the building was granted planning permission as a residential development but after it was opened it had been operating as a hotel. An order to restore the hotel to its original proposed use has been filed with the court.

Building violations were also found in the construction of two other well-known Slynchev Bryag hotels: Oasis and Heaven. The company Galaxy Property Group owns Oasis, while Heaven is owned by Georgi Slavov, son of Stoil Slavov, who was killed in 2003 in an elevator in Sofia's Lozenets borough.

The prosecutor of the Supreme Cassation Prosecutor's Office Tsoni Tsonev started actions against the three hotels in the Black Sea resort in 2006. The Prosecutor's Office said, categorically, that the buildings were illegal and have to be demolished. All three hotels are in the east part of Slunchev Bryag and are about 10m from the sea.

"Orders were issued for the hotels in Slunchev Bryag but they were being apealled against in the courts," Ivanova said to The Sofia Echo. NCCD can start demolishing the buildings only once the owners have refused to do it themselves, she said.

Other tourism facilities in Bulgaria were also pointed out as illegal and received removal orders. NCCD chief inspector in the construction control department, Krassimir Petkov, said 18 orders for the demolition of illegal buildings around Iskur dam, near Sofia, had been issued between the beginning of 2007 and May 22. He said in cases where the owners refused to pull down the buildings in the period defined by the authorities the buildings would be demolished compulsory by NCCD and the cost of the destruction would be charged back to the owners.

Up until December 12, 64 demolition orders had been issued in total during 2007 for the region around the largest Bulgarian dam, Iskur, which attracts many visitors, including those who own villas in the area.

Five of the illegal buildings are in the Orlovo Gnezdo neighbourhood. They are all in the same villa residential development: two bungalows, one metal one-storey building and two one-storey self-assembly houses.

In March NCCD said this was the first big series of demolition orders issued for the Iskur dam area. In August and December 2006 NCCD inspected 118 buildings in the dam's protected zone, where, according to the law, all activities are banned to reduce possible pollution of the water. It was found that municipal employees had carried out many violations of the law: they did not respect the change of regulations zones and returned the previous status of private lands and they had issued illegal construction permits.

Ivanova told The Sofia Echo that the NCCD had started the process of deciding which firm to use to pull down nine of these illegal buildings. "Several similar procedures must be started by the end of the year," she said. Compulsory demolition procedures cannot be started against some of the rest of the buildings because the time period that the owners have to either demolish the building themselves or appeal against the order has not ellapsed yet.