THIRD SECTION
CASE OF MADZHAROV v. BULGARIA
(Application no. 5113/20)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
JUDGMENT
 
STRASBOURG
5 November 2024
 
This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Madzharov v. Bulgaria,
The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:
 Georgios A. Serghides, President,
 Oddný Mjöll Arnardóttir,
 Diana Kovatcheva, judges,
and Olga Chernishova, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 5113/20) against the Republic of Bulgaria lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 17 January 2020 by a Bulgarian national, Mr Georgi Paskalev Madzharov (“the applicant”), who was born in 1990, lives in Burgas and was represented by Ms T. Peeva, a lawyer practising in Burgas;
the decision to give notice of the application to the Bulgarian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Ms V. Hristova from the Ministry of Justice;
the parties’ observations;
Having deliberated in private on 8 October 2024,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The case is of the type examined in Kostov and Others v. Bulgaria (nos. 66581/12 and 25054/15, 14 May 2020) and concerns the adequacy of compensation for expropriation under the State Property Act. In 2019 the governor of Burgas Region expropriated a plot of land measuring 6,178 square metres for the construction of a road. While the land was at that time formally considered agricultural, under the local urban development plan of 2011 it had been designated for public and administrative services, commerce, and small private enterprises. The applicant had bought it in 2014. 2. In the expropriation proceedings, which were concluded with a final judgment of the Burgas Administrative Court of 17 July 2019, the compensation to be accorded to the applicant was calculated on the basis of transactions with agricultural land in the period preceding the expropriation. The compensation thus amounted to 102,396 Bulgarian levs (BGN), equivalent to 52,376 euros (EUR), or BGN 16.57 (EUR 8.47) per square metre. 3. The applicant complained under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 that the amount of compensation was inadequate as it was considerably below the actual market value of his plot of land.

Outcome for Article P1-1: violation