Romania Clears The Deadlock On The Sale Of Farmland Located Outside Buildable Areas Generated By This Year's Legislative Changes

• Published date: 17 December 2020
• Subject Matter: Real Estate and Construction, Real Estate
• Law Firm: Schoenherr Attorneys at Law
• Author: Ms Simona Chirică, Mădălina Irina Mitan and Steliana Garofil

This year, Romania significantly changed its legislation on the sale of farmland, as detailed in this article. Widely criticised for creating restrictions on the access of foreigners to Romanian agricultural real estate, which could raise concerns about its compatibility with EU legislation, the new rules were enacted by Law no. 175/2020 for the amendment and completion of Law no. 17/2014 on the regulations regarding the sale-purchase of agricultural land situated outside buildable areas and for the amendment of Law no. 268/2001 on the privatisation of companies administrating the State's publicly- and privately-owned land with agricultural destination and for the creation of the Agency for the State's Domain ("Law 175/2020").

Law 175/2020 stipulates that its provisions apply to any sale-purchase of agricultural land situated outside buildable areas, irrespective of whether the process was ongoing on the date when the law came into force or was initiated afterwards. It came into force on 13 October 2020, while the methodological norms for its application have not been adopted yet.

With the competent public authorities faced with the genuine impossibility of finalising the process for assessing sale-purchase offers filed by land owners prior to 13 October 2020, transactions involving agricultural land situated outside buildable areas initiated under the old sale-purchase procedure stipulated by Law no. 17/2014 were deadlocked.

To resolve the situation, the Romanian Government enacted Emergency Ordinance no. 203/2020 on some measures aimed at regulating the sale-purchase of agricultural land situated outside buildable areas ("GEO 203"), which came into effect on 25 November 2020.

GEO 203 sets forth the rules that derogate from Law 175/2020, applicable to the sale-purchase of...