Roy called me on a Friday at noon, sounding like someone who had already made up his mind before dialing.
“Ilan, I found something amazing in Sofia. Two rooms, high floor, view of the park. A price you won't believe. I want you to go over the contract, but basically it's absolutely fine.”
I knew that last sentence. “Basically it's absolutely fine” is usually what people say when they want you to approve what they have already decided.
Roy is a tech entrepreneur, one of those who, when they decide, they decide. He built and sold two small companies, lives in Tel Aviv, and travels to Europe six or seven times a year for conferences and meetings. In the past month he had caught an idea that is going around his circles - real estate in Bulgaria. Cheap, developing, growing demand. Everyone he knows who bought there says the same thing: “Why didn't I do this sooner.”
His logic was simple and elegant. An apartment in Sofia that would earn long-term rent while he wasn't there, and serve as his base when he came to the city on business trips. That would pay him to be there. That would make money while he was in Israel and wait for him when he arrived.
“I'll be there maybe eight times a year,” he explained. “A week, two weeks each time. The rest - tenants.”
I sat with him in a meeting on Sunday. He brought his plan, an Excel spreadsheet with yield calculations, the average rent in the neighborhood, management costs. He had done his homework. The data was right.
“Roy,” I said, “your data is right. The question isn't economic.”
He looked up. “Then what is it?”
I asked him one question: “Who will you sign the lease with?”
“A private tenant. A family, preferably. People who want stability.”
“And what will you write in the contract about your visits?”
He was silent. Not the silence of someone who doesn't know, the silence of someone who realizes he hadn't thought about this question.
Renting an apartment to a long-term tenant in Bulgaria is not a simple act. When you sign a lease for a year or more, the tenant receives significant legal protection. You cannot just tell him “I'm coming for a week in November, vacate the apartment.” It doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way anywhere - not in Israel, not in Europe, and in Bulgaria in particular.
A tenant who signs a long-term contract is signing for his home. Not for a place to sleep. He brings furniture, registers an address, children go to school in the area. When Roy arrives for a week and “wants the apartment,” he is not arriving at his own property. He is arriving at someone else's home, who has simply paid to live in it for a period.
“So I just don't tell the tenant that I come by now and then?” Roy asked.
That was the moment I realized the conversation was moving to another level.
I explained quietly: if he enters the apartment while a tenant is living in it, even if he owns it, he breaches the lease. In Bulgaria, just as in Israel and most of Europe, the tenant has a right to quiet and exclusive use. A landlord cannot enter without consent and on terms defined in advance. If Roy does it anyway, the tenant can claim breach of contract and sue for damages. And not only that, he can refuse to vacate and keep living there until the end of the contract, with Roy able to do very little about it.
“Would you agree to live in an apartment in Tel Aviv where the owner can come and stay whenever he feels like it?” I asked.
“But can't I write into the contract that I have access?” he tried.
“You can try. But then the tenant you're looking for, a family that wants stability, won't sign. Because who would want to live in a home that the landlord comes to eight times a year?”
Roy leaned back. I watched him work it through.
“So there are two options,” I told him, “and only two.”
The first - short-term rental. An apartment rented to tourists and business guests, by the day and by the week. It can be managed through platforms, and you can reserve certain weeks for yourself. There are licensing rules in Sofia you have to meet, there are different management costs, and cash flow is volatile. But it is possible, and it also lets him use the apartment.
The second - a long-term lease with a stable tenant. Predictable cash flow, less operational headache, a tenant who treats the property as a home. But the apartment belongs to the tenant for the whole length of the contract. Roy can come to Sofia whenever he wants. He just sleeps in a hotel.
“Can't I have both?” he asked, this time half laughing.
“No,” I said. “Not without having it explicitly signed, and a long-term tenant looking for a home won't sign that.”
He leaned back. A brief silence. Not the silence of anger, the silence of digestion.
In the end Roy bought the apartment. He decided to go with a long-term lease, and give up the idea of “my base in Sofia.” He explained that the financial calculation still worked for him, a reasonable yield, a developing market, a tenant already in place.
Before we ended the call he said to me: “I knew there was a problem here that I hadn't seen yet. I didn't know it was so basic.”
That is exactly what surprises people. They expect a complex legal problem, a hidden clause, an obscure regulation, a registration issue. And the real problem isn't in the purchase contract. It is in a very simple question: what do you want this apartment to be. Because the answer to that question determines everything - the type of tenant, the structure of the contract, and what you can and cannot do afterwards.
He will keep making his visits to Sofia. It's just that he has already booked a hotel.
Stories are based on real situations, with identifying details changed. Not legal advice.
Translated from the Hebrew original. עברית