Romanian Court invalidates ANCPI restriction on surface modifications

Key takeaways

By means of Judgment no. 178/2024 (hereinafter referred to as the “Judgment”), the Brașov Court of Appeal annulled Article 98 paragraph (2) of ANCPI (National Agency for Cadastre and Real Estate Publicity) Order no. 600/2023, which limited to 2% the modification of the surface area of properties resulting from merger or de-merger operations. The court held that this restriction is not provided by the Law no. 7/1996 on cadastre and real estate publicity (hereinafter referred to as “Law no. 7/1996”) and constitutes an addition to the law, which is not permitted through a lower-ranking normative administrative act.

What’s new

The Brașov Court of Appeal’s decision reaffirms the prerogative of the principle of hierarchy of normative acts, namely that lower-ranking normative administrative acts issued by public authorities (i.e., Order no. 600/2023 of the General Manager of the National Agency for Cadastre and Real Estate Publicity – “ANCPI” – approving the Regulation on Reception and Registration in the Cadastre and Land Book Records) shall be adopted solely on the basis of and for the enforcement of the law under which they were issued, and within the limits set by such law.

Until the publication of the Judgment in the Official Gazette (i.e., 18 November 2025), the Regulation on Reception and Registration in the Cadastre and Land Book Records approved by Order no. 600/2023 imposed an additional 2% limit in case of modifications to the surface area of properties resulting from merger or de-merger operations. This requirement created difficulties for owners and practitioners in their dealings with the cadastre and real estate publicity offices, particularly in situations where the modifications exceeded this threshold but fell within the limits set by Law no. 7/1996 (i.e., 15% for plots located within built-up areas and 5% for plots located outside built-up areas). These limits apply in cases where works for registration in the cadastre and land book reveal that the measured surface differs from:

• the surface recorded in a land book based on a cadastral documentation received by the territorial office; or
• the surface in the cadastral documentation received by the territorial office for which no land book has been opened; or
• the surface indicated in the ownership documents for which no land book has been opened.

By means of the Judgment, the court held that this additional restriction is unlawful, as the text of Law no. 7/1996 makes no distinction based on the type of operation and does not provide for the 2% threshold, but only for the general limits mentioned above (i.e., 15% for plots located within built-up areas and 5% for plots located outside built-up areas, as indicated above).

By means of Decision no. 4044 of 19 September 2025, the High Court of Cassation and Justice dismissed the appeal lodged by ANCPI against the Judgment as ungrounded, thereby rendering the solution pronounced by the Brașov Court of Appeal final.

Thus, the Judgment confirms that additional conditions cannot be introduced by an order of the general manager of ANCPI as compared to the text of a law contained in a normative act with superior legal force. The arguments raised by ANCPI in its defence, according to which the 2% threshold would have applied in cases of technical errors or repositioning, were dismissed, as the wording of Article 98 paragraph (2) made no such clarification and was not correlated with the articles concerning the correction of errors (i.e., Articles 104 and 109 of Order no. 600/2023). The court emphasised that Article 98 paragraph (2) is located in the section regarding cadastral documentation for modification of the property’s surface area and not in the section concerning the correction of positioning errors, while the law makes no distinction based on the operation from which the additional surface results. Consequently, the additional 2% limit contravenes the clear provisions of Article 41 paragraph (3) letter (b) of Law no. 7/1996, which allows modifications of up to 15% for plots located within built-up areas and 5% for plots located outside built-up areas, without any other limitations or conditions related to cadastral operations of de-merger or merger.

Implications

For property owners and practitioners, surface modifications resulting from merger or de-merger operations shall be assessed against the limits set by Article 41 of Law no. 7/1996, namely up to 15% for plots located within built-up areas and up to 5% for plots located outside built-up areas, without the 2% restriction in the case of mergers or de-mergers. This decision removes a practice of the cadastre and real estate publicity offices that created difficulties in preparing cadastral documentation and carrying out real estate transactions. The ruling constitutes an important precedent regarding compliance with the hierarchy of normative acts and the limits of the regulatory powers of public authorities, reiterating that acts falling within tertiary legislation (i.e., orders of the director general of the National Agency for Cadastre and Real Estate Publicity) cannot introduce additional conditions beyond those provided by primary legislation (i.e., Law no. 7/1996).