Restitution and land fragmentation

Restitution and The Bulgarian Experience (Ann Louise Strong, 1995) Prior to communism, Bulgaria was a rural nation of small land owners. Largely as a result of three land reforms - those of 1879, 1921, and 1948 - there were almost no large land owners, with 93 percent of holdings under 25 acres (10 hectares) in 1946 (Cr ton, 1987).
The one million farms consisted of 12 million separate parcels (Mikhailov, 1993). The communists initially forced farmers to enter cooperatives and subsequently merged most of them into state farms, with loss of title to the prior owners and n o compensation. In dramatic contrast to ownership patterns in 1946, at the height of concentration in the 1970s, the average agro-industrial complex had 5,000 workers and farmed about 59,000 acres (about 24,000 hectares).
In 1989, cooperatives and state farms held 99 percent of Bulgaria’s farm land.
Only 19 percent of the work force was in agriculture and forestry, and many of them were part-time, retired from other jobs (Bulgaria, 1991).
Given the number of people who had been farm land owners and who had lost their property, the pressure for passage of some form of restitution act was not surprising. The farm land restitution law (The Law of Ownership, 1991) was passed in 1991, authorising claims for property taken during 1946 or later and placed in cooperatives or state farms. Claims were filed representing 54 percent of the population. Claims also were filed by churches, mosques and other institutions, municipalities, and the state. The first step for the Land Commissions that were established under the law was determination of validity of the claims. Often testimony from elderly people in a village was the sole means of deciding who had owned what, since boundaries had been obliterated with the formation of the vast state farms and land records often had been destroyed.
Only 13 percent of the land, but land representing almost one-third of the claimants, has been restituted in its former boundaries. This is predominantly land in mountainous areas where prior boundaries could be determined. As of 1993, 91 percent of the parcels of land restituted was under 2.5 acres (1 hectare) in size, with the remaining parcels not exceeding 12.4 acres (5 hectares).
Acquisition of land is a task difficult enough even when funding is available. Having numerous small owners means that someone needs to go and see them and personally negotiate its purchase. This multiplied by say 200 different owners makes it look like a seemingly impossible mission. However together with our local partner we have employed locals to literally walk around the villages in the area and collect information and documentation on land. Title deeds of ownership, inheritance certificates etc are being checked and copied to give us a broader picture and the contact details of the owners of the specific plots of our interest.