In brief
- The Prime Minister has entirely replaced the operating rules of the National Commission for Property Compensation, the body that decides the compensation for nationalised property.
- The commission has 11 members, sits validly with a minimum of 7 present, meets monthly, and its members may now take part by videoconference, with mandatory audio-video recording.
- Those concerned are the several tens of thousands of compensation files still being processed, but also the people waiting for a validation, an invalidation or a compensation decision.
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial) No. 691 of 20 August 2026
In force from: 20 August 2026
The commission that decides whether and how much you receive for your grandfather’s nationalised house works from today under new rules, and its most visible change is that the members can vote from a distance. Prime Minister’s Decision No. 282 of 20 August 2026, published in the Official Gazette of Romania No. 691 of the same day, entirely replaces the annex to Prime Minister’s Decision No. 249/2013, that is, the rules on the organisation and operation of the National Commission for Property Compensation. This is the third intervention in this field in a single issue, after the Constitutional Court held that assignees valued with the 2013 notarial valuation grid may ask for final judgments to be revised.
The decision has a single article, and the substance sits in the annex. It was issued at the request of the National Authority for Property Restitution, through letter No. 227/L.H. of 5 August 2026, on the basis of Article 29 of the Administrative Code.
The National Commission operates under the Prime Minister’s Chancellery and has four tasks: it validates or invalidates, in whole or in part, the decisions issued by the entities vested by law that propose compensation measures, it issues the compensation, partial validation, invalidation or rejection decisions, it issues compensation titles through the procedure specific to the former Central Commission for Establishing Compensation, and it takes the other measures needed to apply Law No. 165/2013.
What it changes in practice
The first effect concerns the composition, which is now listed plainly. The commission has 11 members: the president of the National Authority for Property Restitution, who is also the chair of the commission, the vice-presidents of the authority, a representative of the Prime Minister’s Chancellery, the president of the State Domains Agency, a representative of the Department for Interethnic Relations, one of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, two of the Ministry of Justice and one of the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
The second effect concerns the quorum and the pace of work. The commission sits validly in the presence of a minimum of 7 members and decides by a majority of the votes of those present. The meetings are held monthly and whenever necessary, at the chair’s convening, and the convening is sent by e-mail or by letter, at least 3 days before the meeting, together with the agenda.
The third effect is the most important novelty. In duly reasoned cases, the members may take part through means of remote communication, by videoconference or teleconference, provided that the system ensures the identification of the participants, effective participation in the debates and the casting of the vote in conditions of security and confidentiality. Those taking part in this way are considered present, and the decisions carry the same validity as those adopted with physical attendance.
The fourth effect is the safeguard that comes with this opening. The proceedings held by electronic means are recorded audio-video, and remote participation is expressly noted both in the attendance list and in the minutes of the meeting. A member who cannot attend in person must send a reasoned request, subject to the approval of the chair.
The fifth effect concerns the way the money is calculated. The secretariat of the commission values the property by applying the notarial valuation grid valid for the year preceding the issuing of the decision, by reference to the area and the category of property in the locality concerned, using the criteria in the annex to Law No. 165/2013. This is the single rule, the same for all beneficiaries, applicable since 2021.
The sixth effect is one of internal transparency: the secretariat reports monthly to the institutions represented on the commission on the state of the files, while the files in which the prefect has not carried out the legality review, like those settled by entities that lacked competence, are sent back.
What has changed compared with the previous situation
The previous rules dated from 2013 and had been approved by Prime Minister’s Decision No. 249/2013, published in the Official Gazette of Romania No. 371 of 21 June 2013. They are not amended point by point, but replaced in full with a new text, which means that any reference to the old annex has to be read again.
The most visible novelty is the remote meeting, together with the whole framework around it: the technical conditions, the reasoned request, the approval of the chair, the audio-video recording and the express entry in two documents. In 2013, when the previous rules were written, this way of working was not regulated.
The second change worth noting is the institutional attachment. The rules state explicitly that the National Commission operates under the Prime Minister’s Chancellery, and that a representative of the Chancellery is a member of the commission.
What does not change are the substantive tasks and the method of valuation. The commission validates or invalidates the decisions of the entities vested by law, it issues the compensation decisions, and the valuation is made with the notarial valuation grid of the year preceding the issuing of the decision, the same for all categories of beneficiaries.
Advantages and disadvantages
What it improves
- It solves a real cause of postponed meetings: the fact that one member cannot be physically present no longer blocks the sitting of the commission.
- It attaches concrete safeguards to remote participation, namely the identification of the participants, the confidential vote, the audio-video recording and the entry in the attendance list.
- It puts the composition, the quorum and the pace of work in writing, which allows anyone to check whether a meeting was lawfully held.
- It confirms the single valuation rule through the notarial valuation grid of the year preceding the issuing of the decision, with no distinction between categories of beneficiaries.
- It requires monthly reporting to the institutions represented on the commission, so the state of the files no longer remains purely internal knowledge.
What remains a problem
- The rules organise the work but set no deadline within which a file must be settled, and the delays in this field are more than a decade old.
- The state of the files is communicated to the institutions represented on the commission, not to the holders of the files, who are left to ask on their own.
- Remote participation depends on the approval of the chair in each case, so it is not a right of the member but a facility that is granted.
- The text does not provide for publishing the agenda or the minutes of the meeting, so transparency remains internal to the administration.
- A quorum of 7 out of 11 remains high for a commission made up of representatives of seven different institutions.
Practical advice
- If you have a file before the National Commission, check first whether the prefect carried out the legality review of the decision of the entity vested by law. Without it, the secretariat sends the file back and the procedure starts again.
- Check whether the entity that issued your decision had competence under the law. Files settled by entities that lacked competence are sent back in the same way.
- Be ready for requests for further documents. The secretariat may ask for additional documents both from the entities and from the holder of the file, and a late answer means a postponed file.
- When you receive the decision, check which notarial valuation grid was applied. The rule is the grid valid for the year preceding the issuing of the decision by the National Commission, not the one in force when the property was taken over.
- Check as well whether compensation received earlier or unrepaid loans were deducted from the updated value. The secretariat is bound to make that deduction, and an error here changes the final amount.
- If you are the representative of an institution on the commission, keep in mind that the state of the files is reported monthly, so you can follow the progress without making specific requests.
Frequently asked questions
What does the National Commission for Property Compensation do?
Who sits on the commission?
How many members must be present for the meeting to be valid?
Can the members take part online?
How is the property in my file valued?
Is there a deadline within which the commission must settle my file?
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. 691 of 20 August 2026 8 pages PDF, 76 KB the act starts on page 4
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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.