The little house in the Carpathian Mountains

I was extremely busy today, so I didn’t get a chance to further write about Bulgaria.

Instead I’ll show you some photos of a nice and cozy house from the Carpathian Mountains, with a breath taking view, built by a renowned architect sometime before the Second World War.

I fell in love with that house, and I almost decided to buy it. The asking price: $ 10,000

The house was seized by the communists, after the war and rented out to 3 families.

In 2004 the rightful owner regained possession of the house, but he had to go through a law suit

in order to evacuate the people living in that house for generations.

Silly isn’t it?

Repossessing a property seized unlawfully by the communists, doesn’t give you automatically the right to live in that house, if that house is occupied by tenants.

It may take years until you can really own that property and do what you wish with it.

It was tempting to buy the house for that price and go on with the litigation, but ultimately I decided not to. I didn’t want to spend years in court, trying to throw out in the street some poor people with nowhere to go. It was a too heavy burden on my shoulders.

The rightful owner was a poor guy living in Canada, living from a miserable pension. He was a lawyer by trade, but he illegally left Romania in the 70’s heading for Canada.

He got there in the end, but he never could practice as a lawyer, so he became a handy man; sad

Eventually he sold the house to a friend of his from Canada, for 10,000 Canadian Dollars.

He always dreamed about owning a car, and finally his dream come true.