Starting in February 2009, the cadastral map and property register of the country will go online, Prime Minister Sergei Stanishev said while speaking in the National Assembly on January 16. Yet Bulgarian media put a question mark over its effectiveness, since only 12 per cent of the land has been thoroughly accounted for and included in local cadastres. The rest of the country would supposedly be covered by 2015, according to governmental strategy.

The new system is meant to assist professionals and clients in facilitating access to property information verification. According to the widespread belief, the virtual cadastre would eliminate property frauds, because it should list the entire history of the piece of real estate in question. For now, wherever the cadastral map is missing, the checking would continue as usual - urban territories are handled by the local administration, while agrarian land is registered with the municipal agency of agriculture.

Within the existing system the property is searchable by the name of the current/last owner. There is no unifying standard to follow when describing the characteristics of the real estate in the title deed at the time it changes owners. The description is often written in a free style and with a lot of inconsistencies. In addition, most of the information available in the property register needs to be updated. The new system would allow the real estate listed in the property register to be defined by the exact area and location of the land plot, precise borders and background information.

"Of course, the envisioned registry would help curtail property frauds," Deshka Rachevets, a public notary practising in Veliko Turnovo, told The Sofia Echo. She said that, when fully implemented, the system would allow professionals to verify information everywhere in the country. "Then we will have the complete picture, the entire history of the property - whether it was freed from all encumbrance, it was not in a process of foreclosure as well as other factors that the buyer has to be aware of."

Compiling all information in one unified system is a long process, Rachevets said. It began five years ago and to expedite it, Bulgarian citizens could participate by preparing a detailed account of their property parameters and lending it to the local administration. "But this cost money, and I think that property registering is a responsibility of the state," Rachevets said.

Website Mediapool.bg quoted Stanishev as saying that "property frauds are the most insidious and vile of crimes". He said that, in recent years, such crimes had increased because of the rapid hike of property value and possibility of handsome profits to be siphoned from it. Stanishev also spoke about the various methods by which property crimes were perpetrated. In some cases, the title deeds kept in court archives were being replaced with forged ones, with the help of insiders who were part of the criminal network.

At other times, fabricated contracts that validated deals with municipal property were pushed forward. A similar scandal involved the forged signature of Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov in 2008. The signature appeared on a contract, supposedly signed by Borissov in January 2008. The contract regulated the sale of a municipal land plot in the borough of Strelbishte to the owner of a company called Sida-S. Based on that contract, the "receiver" acquired a title deed with his name on it. At the time, his brother was a deputy chairperson of the National State Security and Borissov had expressed hopes that he would not interfere with the case. The mayor believed that such cases could arise because the state and the criminal jurisdiction failed to apply adequate safeguards beforehand.

"Well, by definition, all frauds are possible because of lapses in the administrative system," Mladen Mitov, analyser at Yavlena real estate agency, told The Sofia Echo. "Yes, it takes a lot of time to complete the cadastral map of the country, let alone larger cities that still do not have one. But this is the beginning; it is a positive step forward," he said. "We need to stimulate good initiatives, from which all of us would benefit."

Stanishev has expressed concern, as quoted by Mediapool.bg, that property frauds were being facilitated by public notaries, judicial institutions, judges and court employees. He said that greater control would be exercised in 2009 with mass checks planned of public notary offices and judges engaged with the property registry.

In October 2008, the Union of Bulgarian Law Professionals organised a special national conference to discuss the existence of the real estate mafia. Entitled Property Frauds - Problems and Counteraction, the conference gathered state officials and representatives from the Notary Chamber, the Supreme Bar Council, the Supreme Judicial Council and the Supreme Court of Cassation, among others. President Georgi Purvanov opened the conference by agreeing that there was a real estate mafia and that all institutions should liaise to neutralise its activities. Later, one of the speakers remarked: "Too bad the President has already left. I could have suggested that he declare a state of emergency because property fraud in this country must have got way out of hand for the President himself to attend this conference."