In brief

  • Systematic land registration contracts under the large rural cadastre project are no longer terminated automatically when the companies’ late-payment penalties exceed the ceiling set in the contract.
  • The time the service provider spends waiting for permits, certificates and approvals from other institutions is no longer deducted from its performance period, so it no longer generates penalties charged to the provider.
  • The contracting authority has 45 days from the entry into force of the law, that is until 27 August 2026, to call service providers in to sign the addenda.
Act: Law no. 127/2026
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) no. 570 of 10 July 2026
In force from: 13 July 2026

The contracts under which free cadastre work is carried out in Romania’s villages can no longer be terminated by operation of law because the company doing the work has accumulated too many late-payment penalties. Law no. 127/2026, published in Official Gazette of Romania no. 570 of 10 July 2026 and promulgated by Decree no. 384/2026, adds four new paragraphs to Law no. 7/1996 on cadastre and land registration and applies them to contracts signed earlier as well. It is the second intervention of this summer in the same programme, after the one by which the working deadlines of local authorities were extended.

Formally, the act is an approval law: Article I approves Government Ordinance no. 26 of 1 August 2024, which governs the management of European money coming through the Recovery and Resilience Facility and supplements Article V of Government Emergency Ordinance no. 127/2023. The ordinance had been issued under Article 1 point VII.1 of enabling Law no. 187/2024 and had already been in application for almost two years. The approval comes without any change to its text.

The actual novelty lies in Article II. There, in Article 9 of Law no. 7/1996, after paragraph (231), paragraphs (232) to (235) are inserted, and they concern a European programme other than the one in the title: the major project “Increasing the coverage and inclusion of the property registration system in rural areas of Romania”, financed under priority axis 11 of the Regional Operational Programme 2014-2020 and then phased into the Smart Growth, Digitalisation and Financial Instruments Programme 2021-2027.

What it changes in practice

The first effect is the survival of the contracts. Paragraph (232) states that these contracts continue for the financing period of the programme, regardless of the amount of late-payment penalties accumulated by the service providers. The wording does not concern the future alone: paragraph (233) expressly extends it to service contracts and framework agreements concluded earlier, in which a clause on automatic termination by operation of law had been written, without prior notice and without a court ruling, triggered precisely by exceeding the penalty ceiling.

The second effect is that terminating a contract becomes a decision rather than an automatism. Paragraph (234) preserves the possibility of unilateral termination for contracts in the above category, but makes it conditional upon an express expression of will by the contracting authority and upon its assessment that the measure is absolutely necessary. In practice, the clause that operated on its own, through the mere crossing of a figure, is replaced by an act of the authority, which can be reasoned and therefore challenged.

The third effect concerns the way delay is measured. Paragraph (235) removes from the service performance period the time needed to obtain permits, certificates and any other approvals provided by law to be issued by other entities, among which central and local public administration authorities are expressly named. It is the only one of the four provisions that also tackles the cause and not just the consequence: if waiting for a permit no longer runs on the provider’s clock, it no longer generates new penalties.

The fourth effect is procedural and comes with a deadline. Article III requires the contracting authority to notify service providers within 45 days of the entry into force of the law, with a view to concluding addenda. Since the law enters into force on 13 July 2026, the deadline falls on 27 August 2026.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

Until now, the systematic land registration contracts under this project ran on a mechanism common in public procurement: a provider that missed the deadlines paid penalties, and once the penalties passed a certain threshold the contract was terminated by operation of law, without anyone having to do anything further. The effect occurred by itself, once a figure was reached.

After 13 July 2026, that effect no longer occurs by itself in the case of contracts under the rural cadastre project. The contract remains in being, and if the contracting authority still wants to end it, it has to say so explicitly and to assume the assessment that the measure is absolutely necessary.

The starting point for counting the delay has changed as well. Previously, the provider also bore the wait for documents that someone else had to issue, from a directorate in the central administration to a town hall. From now on, those intervals no longer count within its performance period.

What has not changed are the penalties already accumulated. The law does not cancel them, does not reduce them and does not suspend them. It removes a single effect of theirs, the one on the existence of the contract. The debt remains a debt, and the balance between what the provider has invoiced and what it owes is settled further under the rules of the contract.

Advantages and disadvantages

What it improves

  • Cadastre works in the villages covered by the project do not stop halfway, and owners are not left with a commune registered only in part.
  • European money already committed under priority axis 11 and carried on into the 2021-2027 programme is not lost because contracts are terminated.
  • The provider no longer pays for delays caused by other institutions, which removes a real source of penalties that it could not control.
  • Terminating the contract becomes a reasoned act of the contracting authority, and therefore verifiable, instead of a clause that operated automatically.

What remains a problem

  • The law does not say on what grounds the contracting authority may still terminate unilaterally, only that it may do so when it considers the measure absolutely necessary.
  • The protection is tied to the financing period of the 2021-2027 programme rather than to a calendar date, so the text does not reveal when it ends.
  • Accumulated penalties remain due and continue to accrue; the contract survives, but the debt grows.
  • Article III requires providers to be notified within 45 days, but provides nothing for the situation in which the addendum is not signed.
  • The measure concerns only the contracts under this major project; systematic land registration contracts financed from other sources remain under the old rule.

Practical advice

  1. If you are a service provider under a systematic land registration contract, first check whether it forms part of the major project financed under priority axis 11 of the Regional Operational Programme 2014-2020. Only the contracts under this project fall within the new paragraphs.
  2. Look in the contract for the automatic termination clause linked to the penalty ceiling. If it exists, the contract falls into the category set out in paragraph (233) and can no longer be terminated by the mere crossing of the ceiling.
  3. Document, for each stage, the date on which you requested a permit, a certificate or an approval from another institution and the date on which you received it. These intervals no longer count within the performance period, but they have to be proven.
  4. Keep track of the contracting authority’s notification. It has to be sent by 27 August 2026, and the addendum is the instrument through which the new rules actually enter your contract.
  5. Do not confuse the continuation of the contract with the cancellation of the penalties. Ask the contracting authority for an up-to-date statement of the debt, so that you know what will be withheld at settlement.
  6. If you are a local authority included in the project, ask the provider for the schedule redrawn after the addendum: the deadlines for delivering the technical cadastral documents are recalculated without the periods spent waiting for permits.

Frequently asked questions

What does systematic land registration mean?
It is the operation through which the state measures all the properties in an administrative-territorial unit and enters them in the land book, ex officio and free of charge for the owners, unlike sporadic registration, which each owner pays for when they need it.
Does the law cancel my penalties if I am a service provider?
No. The law removes only the effect of the penalties on the existence of the contract. The accumulated amounts remain due, and they continue to be calculated in accordance with the contract.
Can my contract still be terminated?
Yes, but not by operation of law. Paragraph (234) requires an express expression of will by the contracting authority and its assessment that the measure is absolutely necessary.
From when do the new rules apply?
From 13 July 2026, that is 3 days after the publication of the law in Official Gazette of Romania no. 570 of 10 July 2026.
Do I have to sign an addendum?
The law provides that the contracting authority notifies service providers within 45 days of the entry into force, with a view to concluding addenda. The deadline falls on 27 August 2026.
What does the cadastre have to do with the ordinance on the national recovery plan approved by the same law?
Nothing directly. Article I approves Government Ordinance no. 26/2024, which concerns the Recovery and Resilience Facility, while Article II supplements Law no. 7/1996 for a project financed from another European programme, the Regional Operational Programme 2014-2020, phased into the 2021-2027 programme.
I own property in a commune covered by the project. What changes for me?
Directly, nothing: you have no new obligation. Indirectly, the cadastre work in the commune has a better chance of being completed, because the company carrying it out no longer risks the automatic termination of its contract.

Editorial analysis

The law solves a real and easily recognisable problem: a free cadastre programme, financed with European money and carried from one budget cycle into the next, had reached the point where its own contractual clauses could stop it. A clause on automatic termination linked to a penalty ceiling is reasonable in an ordinary service contract. In a contract where part of the delay comes from institutions that are not parties to it, that clause turns into a self-destruction mechanism.

What is interesting is that, of the four new paragraphs, only one touches the cause. Paragraphs (232), (233) and (234) deal with the consequence, that is with the fate of the contract once the penalties have piled up. Paragraph (235), the shortest of them, is the only one that changes the method of calculation, taking the time spent waiting for permits out of the performance period. Had this paragraph existed from the start, the other three would probably have been far less necessary. The law repairs the outcome first and only then the mechanism that produced it.

A second observation concerns the vehicle. The act approved by Article I concerns the Recovery and Resilience Facility, that is the money from the National Recovery and Resilience Plan. The addition made by Article II concerns a project financed under priority axis 11 of the Regional Operational Programme 2014-2020, continued in the Smart Growth, Digitalisation and Financial Instruments Programme 2021-2027. These are two different sources of financing, with different rules, brought together in the same act because one of them was already on Parliament’s table. The ordinance approved by Article I had been published on 1 August 2024, so it had been in application for 708 days by the time the approval law reached the Official Gazette of Romania.

What should be changed

  • The grounds for unilateral termination should be listed. Paragraph (234) leaves the contracting authority with a single criterion, its assessment that the measure is absolutely necessary. A list of situations, even an open one, would give the provider a benchmark for challenging the decision and the authority a benchmark for taking it, instead of a formula that can be justified equally well either way.
  • The duration of the protection should be expressed in dates, not by reference to the financing period of a programme. As it is written now, the rule expires at a moment that the reader of the contract cannot establish from the law.
  • It should be stated what happens if the addendum is not signed. Article III sets a deadline for the notification, but not an effect for a refusal or for silence, even though the new paragraphs produce effects in themselves, by force of the law.
  • The rule in paragraph (235) would deserve to be generalised. Excluding from the performance period the time spent waiting for permits issued by other institutions is useful in any systematic land registration work, not only in the contracts of this major project.

Original text of the legal act

The text below is reproduced in Romanian, the official form of publication.

The full text, as published in the Official Gazette of Romania

Official Gazette of Romania no. 570 of 10 July 2026 8 pages PDF, 81 KB the act starts on page 3

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This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. For specific situations, consult a licensed attorney or tax advisor.