2025 Real Estate Highlights and Perspectives for 2026

2025 Real Estate Highlights

Perspectives for 2026

Also in 2025, with the goal to protect purchasers from potential real estate fraud, real estate transactions i.e. residential reservation agreements and promisorry sale and purchase agreements in permitting and/or construction phase were expressly regulated. Thus, Law No. 207/2025 came into force on December 11, 2025, in the context of the Nordis scheme investigation.

This article highlights the most important changes and trends in Real Estate Law in 2025, with direct impact on the construction permitting procedure, as well as how future residential real estate transactions in project phase are concluded.

• the necessary documentation for issuing the opportunity approval for local urban plans shall be included on the agenda of the specialized committees within 30 days as of the date of submission, and the opportunity approval shall be issued within maximum 15 days as of the analysis of the relevant documentation;
• the approvals for urban plans shall be issued, with or without conditions, by the competent authorities within 30 days as of the date of submission requests (save for specific regulated exceptions);
• the competent authorities may serve the beneficiary, only once, a request for modification, completion, or clarification, stating the reasons for this request and the beneficiary shall have 60 days to provide its answer;
• the competent authorities are required either to issue the approval within 15 days as of the beneficiary’s relevant clarifications, additions, or amendments, or to reject the documentation within the same period, stating the reasons for this decision.

Approvals’ validity term

GEO No. 31/2025 clarifies that both the opportunity approval and other approvals issued under the same procedure are valid until the endorsement or update of the urban planning documentation, regardless of the deadlines set by the internal procedures of the institutions and entities involved in the approval procedure.

Applicable deadlines in the procedure of issuing approvals 

Similarly, GEO No. 31/2025 significantly amends Law No. 50/1991 on the permitting of construction works by expressly regulating the deadlines, as follows:

• the approvals for the building permits shall be issued with or without conditions, within 15 days as of the request date (save for specific regulated exceptions);
• the competent authorities may request, only once, with good reason, the revision or completion of the documentation, within 15 and 30 days, the beneficiary having 60 days to submit its answer;
• the competent authorities are required to release the approvals within 15 days as of the beneficiary’s clarifications, additions, or amendments, any rejection being justified on technical and legal grounds.

Conditioning upon the issuance of approvals

The same regulatory framework expressly forbids conditioning the issuance of approvals on obtaining other approvals beforehand, which are to be requested simultaneously from the competent authorities. The resulting information will be corroborated within the technical documentation representing the basis for the issuance of building permits. The reason behind this change is to significantly reduce the duration of the authorisation procedure.

Validity period of approvals supporting building permits

The approvals issued by the competent authorities are valid until the completion of the authorized construction works, respectively until the conclusion of the corresponding final reception protocol.

Additional measures to improve the efficiency of the construction works permitting procedure

GEO No. 31/2025 regulates additional measures aimed to simplify and improve the efficiency of the procedure for permitting the execution of construction works and, automatically for reduceing the duration of the process, as follows:

• the competent authorities are legally required to approve documentation for investments financed by the NRRP as a matter of priority and without delay, without charging any fees, analysis fees, or consulting fees;
• during the approval and permitting procedure, there will be a single person responsible for the file and this person may only be replaced in exceptional circumstances (for example, if they no longer work in the respective structure, are on leave, are unable to work, or are under disciplinary investigation).
• specific administrative penalties have been introduced for failure to comply with the legal obligations.

Conclusions

The objective of GEO No. 31/2025 is to significantly reduce the time required for the approval of urban planning documentation and for obtaining the building permits. Practice will prove to what extent the procedure will be observed with respect to the legal deadlines and to what extent the tacit approval mechanism will be actually implemented.

Legal changes following the adoption of Law No. 207/2025

Future individual residential purchases reservation. Reservation fee

As a legal novelty, Law No. 207/2025 regulates the reservation agreements for individual units within future condominiums, which may be concluded for a maximum period of 60 days, as a step preceding the conclusion of promisorry sale and purchase agreements or sale agreements, subject to the developer’s penalty to refund the amounts received if such subsequent agreements are not concluded.

The legal framework expressly regulates that the amounts paid for the reservation may not exceed 5% of the purchase price.

Promisorry sale purchase for residential units. Down payment

The significant amendment to Law No. 10/1995 on quality in construction concerns the fact that the developer may promise to sell the future individual housing exclusively under the following cumulative conditions: (i) registered building permit with the relevant land book, (ii) the identification of future condominiums, and (iii) the opening of land books for future units.

The notaries are legally required to request the registration of the promissory agreement in the relevant land book on the authentication date, but no later than the following business day.

The down payments shall be deposited in a separate, dedicated bank account of the developer and may be used exclusively for the purpose of building the project for which the down payment was made, only for development under the coordination of the responsible person or site manager. Failure to comply with this obligation is sanctioned with a significant fine, amounting to 1% of the developer’s turnover in the previous year.

Pre-division of condominiums into future individual units. Division of existing condominiums

Law No. 207/2025 introduces specific regulations regarding the identification of future condominiums into future individual units. The operation is performed based on the authenticated document according to the registrated cadastral documentation, the building permit, and the supporting documentation.

Following the initial registration, the land books for the future individual units are opened and any potential promisorry sale and purchase agreements concluded will be registered.

The individual unit division operation is performed after the completion of the construction works based on the final reception protocol and the building completion certificate.

Conclusions

Law No. 207/2025 may raise difficulties regarding the limits established for concluding promisorry sale and purchase agreements, namely to what extent such represent maximum amounts that can be paid as a down payment or are only intended to limit the expenses that can be advanced by the developers from the down payments, or with regard to possible penalties applicable in the event that developers request and/or collect amounts that exceed the legally established thresholds.

The advantages brought by Law No. 207/2025 refer to securing the interests of the purchasers in the real estate advertising mechanisms that ensure the opposability of transactions prior to the purchase, as well as to the instruments limiting the use of the amounts collected by the developers.

Perspective for 2026: Government Ordinance No. 7/2026 amending and supplementing land use planning, urban planning, construction, and construction regulations

GO No. 7/2026 was adopted in order to supplement the legal amendments made in 2025 regarding urban planning and construction by GEO No. 31/2025.

In order to digitize and improve the efficiency of the procedure, the competent authorities are required to communicate, on the issuance day, by electronic means, requests for amendment or supplementation, approvals, or the rejection notice.

From an operational perspective, GO No. 7/2026 introduces a series of express mechanisms forbiding: (i) the refusal to receive or register documentation (lack of human resources cannot constitute a reason for restricting access to the submission of documentation for obtaining approvals), as well as (ii) the limitation the number of documents that can be submitted, unjustified suspension of user accounts, or restricting their access to digital platforms dedicated to document registration.

Summary

2025 was marked by various legal updates in urban planning and construction, as well as in residential real estate transactions in the permitting and/or construction phase, aiming to simplify the procedures for approving and permitting construction works, but also for providing additional protection for purchasers in the context of past developers’ practices.

The Real Estate team at Voicu & Asociatii assists companies in assessing the impact of these changes, providing support in managing the current activity of clients active in this segment. Our expertise allows us to gain an in-depth understanding of our clients’ field of activity in order to provide practical solutions designed to meet the requirements and specific character of each company.