In brief
- Two owners of properties inside the expropriation corridor of the Henri Coandă International Airport have won in court, and the State is paying them a further 1,620,860.15 lei. One is land with buildings in Otopeni, the other arable land in Tunari, both in Ilfov County, both on the expropriation list since November 2019. The money comes from the state budget, through the budget of the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure.
- For the two properties, the compensation doubles. The 2019 list put them together at 1,423,117.87 lei, and after the final court judgments they reach 3,043,937.60 lei, that is 2.14 times more. For the land in Tunari, the price paid per square metre rises from 40.43 lei to 96.02 lei.
- A second decision with an identical title appears in the same issue of the Official Gazette of Romania. Government Decision no. 747/2026, printed immediately after this one, also supplements the compensation at the same airport, with 1,672,053.47 lei, but for four other entries on the list and on the basis of four other court cases. The only thing the two decisions have in common is the title.
Published: Official Gazette of Romania (Monitorul Oficial), Part I, no. 805 of 23 September 2026
In force from: 23 September 2026, the date of publication, under Article 12(3) of Law no. 24/2000, because the act does not set a later date
Government Decision no. 745/2026 repeats at Otopeni the mechanism described a day earlier at a lignite mine in Gorj, where the owners won in court and the State paid a further 65,560 lei. The extra money rests on two court judgments that have become final, not on a fresh valuation by the administration. The Government recalculates nothing: it takes the figures from the case files and puts them up for payment.
The act has four articles and one annex. Article I approves the supplementing, by 1,620,860.15 lei, of the sum approved in 2019 as fair compensation for the expropriation corridor of the airport infrastructure development programme at Henri Coandă. Article II amends two entries in Annex no. 2 to Government Decision no. 799/2019, current numbers 11 and 459. Article III states where the money comes from and by what route it reaches people, and Article IV places responsibility for the accuracy of the data with the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, through the National Company „Aeroporturi București” S.A.
The two court cases are named in the preamble. The first is case no. 1.017/93/2022, in which the Ilfov Tribunal delivered civil judgment no. 1.656/F of 13 June 2025, which became final through civil decision no. 960 of 3 December 2025 of the Bucharest Court of Appeal. The second is case no. 777/93/2022, with civil judgment no. 89 of 17 January 2025 of the Ilfov Tribunal, which became final through civil decision no. 18A of 14 January 2026, again at the Bucharest Court of Appeal. Which judgment concerns which property, the act does not say, and it cannot be deduced from the text.
This is where the confusion the reader has to avoid comes in. In the issue of the Official Gazette of Romania of 23 September 2026, at pages 5 and 6, immediately after this decision, comes Government Decision no. 747/2026, with exactly the same title and the same subject matter. It too supplements the compensation at Henri Coandă, again on the basis of Government Decision no. 799/2019, but with 1,672,053.47 lei, for entries 238, 306, 624 and 635 of the same list, and it rests on four other court judgments: judgments no. 963/F of 13 May 2024, no. 2.054/F and no. 2.057/F of 14 October 2024 and no. 1.544/F of 28 May 2025. Not even the case numbers overlap. They are two separate acts, adopted in the same government sitting, on 18 September 2026, and published on the same day.
What it changes in practice
The first effect is strictly financial and concerns two people. Entry no. 11 in Annex no. 2 shows Aminaei Adina Elena, with a property in the town of Otopeni, land use category yards and buildings, total area 1,020 sqm, cadastral number 960, land book 103434, field block 22, parcel 800,797/1. Entry no. 459 shows the company International Import Export Comp S.R.L., with arable land of 21,525 sqm in the commune of Tunari, cadastral number and land book 52279, field block 14, parcels 44/5, 44/6 and 44/7. Both lie within the built-up area and both were expropriated in full.
The second effect is the size of the jump. For the land in Tunari, entry no. 459, the 2019 list provided 870,179.90 lei, while the new value is 2,066,852 lei, that is 2.38 times more. Set against the area, the price moves from 40.43 lei per square metre to 96.02 lei per square metre. For the property in Otopeni, entry no. 11, where the compensation is broken down over land, fence and buildings, the total rises from 552,937.97 lei to 977,085.60 lei, 76.7% more. Taken together, the two entries move from 1,423,117.87 lei to 3,043,937.60 lei.
The third effect shows only if the lines inside entry no. 11 are read. The land rises from 228.48 lei per square metre to 372.12 lei. The 140 sqm building rises modestly, from 1,953.71 lei per square metre to 2,027.74 lei. The two small buildings, of 47 sqm and 17 sqm, were valued in 2019 at 237.80 lei per square metre each, and are now valued at 2,868.96 lei and 2,856.64 lei per square metre respectively, that is about twelve times more. The fence goes the other way: its 137.66 linear metres were worth 31,152 lei in 2019 and are worth 27,432.40 lei now. The court rebuilt the valuation item by item, instead of indexing a lump sum.
The fourth effect has to do with money and with the calendar. The supplement is allocated from the state budget, through the budget of the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure, under the state budget law for 2026 no. 43/2026, at chapter 84.01 „Transporturi”, title 55 „Alte transferuri”, budget article 55.01 „Transferuri interne”, item 55.01.12 „Investiții ale agenților economici cu capital de stat”. The ministry transfers it into a treasury account opened in the name of the National Company „Aeroporturi București” S.A., within at most 30 days of the approval of the request to open appropriations, and from there the sum is at the disposal of the owners. For that deadline the act refers to Article 4(8) of the implementing rules of Law no. 255/2010, approved by Government Decision no. 53/2011.
The fifth effect is one of record keeping. Annex no. 2 to Government Decision no. 799/2019, the list of more than 600 entries on which the whole expropriation at Otopeni and Tunari rests, is amended in two lines. From 7 November 2019, when it was published, until 23 September 2026 the list had never been touched, and now it is amended twice on the same day, by this decision and by the one next to it.
What has changed compared with the previous situation
Until 23 September 2026, entries 11 and 459 on the list carried the sums set administratively in 2019. They were, in the language of Law no. 255/2010, individual sums estimated by the expropriating authority, that is, offers made on the basis of a valuation commissioned by the party taking the land. From 23 September 2026 they carry the sums set by the courts. The difference lies in the author of the figure: the same column in the same table now carries the sum a judge established.
The structure of one entry has changed as well. In the 2019 list, entry no. 11 had five value lines: the land, the fence and three buildings, of 140 sqm, 47 sqm and 17 sqm. In the form approved now it has six, because a building of 500 sqm appears, valued at 102,805.15 lei. The built area expropriated at this property thus grows from 204 sqm to 704 sqm. That is a change in what is being taken, not only in what is being paid, and we come back to it below.
The third change is the pace at which the list is touched. In 2020, through Government Decision no. 580/2020, only Article 3 of the decision was amended, the one setting the total estimated value of the compensation at 358,212 thousand lei, without the table being touched. In 2026, however, the list has been opened four times. Government Decision no. 469/2026, published on 24 June 2026, brought a supplement of 1,235,077.04 lei. The next day, through Government Decision no. 487/2026, published on 25 June 2026, entry no. 53 was removed from the list, the property having been identified as publicly owned, and the sums that became available were sent back to the state budget within 90 days. And on 23 September 2026 come decisions no. 745 and no. 747.
Added up, the three supplements of 2026 come to 4,527,990.66 lei, that is 1.26% of the total value estimated in 2019 for the whole corridor. The share is small overall, but it is large at the level of each case file: on the six entries touched in 2026, the State is paying twice what it had offered.
Advantages and disadvantages
What it improves
- The two owners receive in full what they won in court, without having to enforce a judgment against the State.
- The decision names the budget source down to the item, so the payment has an identifiable budget heading, not merely a promise.
- The annex reproduces all the identification details of the properties, including the cadastral numbers and the land book numbers, so the amended line can be laid over the 2019 list without ambiguity.
- The transfer has a short deadline, 30 days, and the money goes into a treasury account opened in the name of the company that runs the airport, not into an account of the ministry itself.
- The act fits the practice the law provides for: Article 8(3) of Law no. 255/2010 expressly allows the sums to be supplemented by government decision, and Article 32(3) requires the list to be corrected whenever necessary.
What remains a problem
- The act ties no case file to any property. There are two owners and two court cases, and the reader cannot say which sum comes from which judgment.
- The annex gives only the new value, not the old one, so the supplement in Article I can be checked only with the 2019 issue of the Official Gazette of Romania at hand.
- The 30 day deadline runs from the approval of the request to open appropriations, an event triggered by the administration itself and which the act does not date.
- Two decisions with identical titles, published in the same issue, are hard to cite and easy to confuse, especially in later acts that refer back to them.
- Between the moment the court judgments became final and the publication of this act, 294 days and 252 days went by, with no legal deadline obliging the administration to do it sooner.
Practical advice
- If you are the owner at one of the two entries, ask the National Company „Aeroporturi București” S.A. in writing for the date on which the request to open appropriations was approved. The 30 days run from that date, and without it the deadline cannot be counted.
- Check whether the judgment in your case also awarded you interest. The High Court of Cassation and Justice held, by Decision no. 31/2020 delivered in an appeal in the interests of the law, that default interest is not due for the period between the transfer of ownership and the close of the proceedings, but is due for the period after that. The 294 days and 252 days that passed between the judgments becoming final and the publication of this act are, in that respect, a later period.
- If you appear on the same list but at another entry, and you consider the 2019 sum too low, the route is Article 22 of Law no. 255/2010: an application to the ordinary court, within the general limitation period, counted from the communication of the decision setting the compensation. The application is exempt from court stamp duty, under Article 23(1) of the same law.
- Do not expect the proceedings to stop the works. Article 22(8) of Law no. 255/2010 provides that neither the expropriation procedure nor the project itself can be suspended at the request of anyone invoking disputes over possession or ownership of the property. The challenge bears only on the amount.
- Prepare the evidence for buildings in good time, not only for the land. In the case of the property in Otopeni, the largest percentage increases came on the small buildings, valued administratively at a price roughly twelve times lower than the one finally retained.
- When you cite this decision in a document, an application or a letter, write the number, not the title. Decisions no. 745/2026 and no. 747/2026 have identical titles and appear in the same issue of the Official Gazette of Romania, at pages 4 and 5, and 5 and 6 respectively.
Frequently asked questions
Who receives the 1,620,860.15 lei?
Why does a court set the compensation and not the expropriating authority?
By how much do the sums rise compared with the 2019 list?
How long did the court cases take?
Where does the money come from?
How does it differ from Government Decision no. 747/2026?
Does the decision enter into force three days after publication?
What happens to the rest of the expropriation list?
Errors and inconsistencies in the published text
- Article II describes a narrower amendment than the one the annex actually makes. The text of Article II says that current numbers 11 and 459 „se modifică în sensul actualizării sumei individuale aferente despăgubirii”, are amended so as to update the individual sum of compensation, so only the sum. The title of the annex in the same act says something else: the list covers the properties „pentru care se modifică elementele de identificare a imobilelor, a titularilor de drepturi reale și a sumelor individuale aferente despăgubirilor”, for which the identification details of the properties, the holders of real rights and the individual sums of compensation are amended. And the annex does just that: at entry no. 11 a new line appears, a building of 500 sqm valued at 102,805.15 lei, which does not exist in Annex no. 2 to Government Decision no. 799/2019, published in Official Gazette of Romania, Part I, no. 899 of 7 November 2019, where the entry has five value lines, not six. The built area expropriated at that property thus grows from 204 sqm to 704 sqm. A reader acting in good faith may conclude either that the 500 sqm building is also being taken, because the annex forms an integral part of the decision, or that it is not, because Article II confines the amendment to the sum. On that difference in reading hang 102,805.15 lei, that is 6.34% of the approved supplement. That the right wording was at hand can be seen in the neighbouring decision, no. 747/2026, published in the same issue, whose Article II reads „în sensul actualizării elementelor de identificare a imobilelor, a titularilor de drepturi reale și a sumelor individuale aferente despăgubirilor”.
Editorial analysis
As a type of act, this is a receipt: the State confirms that it has lost two court cases and pays. Its purpose is to give budgetary form to a decision taken elsewhere. That is precisely why it is worth reading for the mechanism it leaves on view, rather than for what it says about itself.
The first observation that does not emerge from reading the act end to end is the arithmetic. Adding the two entries in the annex gives 3,043,937.60 lei, while the same entries in the list published in 2019 came to 1,423,117.87 lei. The difference is 1,620,819.73 lei, whereas Article I allocates 1,620,860.15 lei. That leaves 40.42 lei which the published text does not explain. The sum is negligible as money and makes nothing impossible, since the allocation amply covers the increase, which is why we have not listed it under errors. It is nevertheless symptomatic of how the annex is built: without a column for the old value, nobody can check Article I without digging the 2019 issue of the Official Gazette of Romania out of the archive. By chance or not, the 40.42 lei are roughly what one square metre was worth in 2019 at entry no. 459, where the unit price was 40.43 lei per square metre.
The second observation concerns the composition of the valuation, beyond its size. The court did not raise all the lines of entry no. 11 proportionally. The land becomes 63% dearer, the large building 3.8%, the fence falls by 11.9%, and the two small buildings rise more than twelvefold, from 237.80 lei per square metre to almost 2,870 lei. A pattern like that says something about the administrative valuation of 2019: where it went wrong, it went very wrong on a few items, rather than slightly wrong across the board. The small buildings seem to have been priced as farm outbuildings, and the court expert report reset them to the level of ordinary structures. For anyone with a case still pending, that is the practical information: the big differences hide in the small lines.
The third observation concerns time. No date in the act shows how long the road was, but those in the preamble allow the calculation. The two files were registered in 2022. In one of them, the appeal alone lasted 362 days. Once final, the judgments waited a further 294 days and 252 days to reach the Official Gazette of Romania. In other words, putting a final judgment up for payment took almost as long as hearing the appeal. Between the publication of the original list, on 7 November 2019, and 23 September 2026, 2,512 days went by, almost seven years, and the airport was not halted for a single day on that account, because the law does not allow it.
The fourth observation is about publication. Two decisions with identical titles, adopted on the same day and published in the same issue, one after the other, raise a problem of record keeping rather than of substance. Whoever cites them five years from now will write the title and get it wrong half the time. The issue also contains, for that matter, a third expropriation decision, no. 732/2026, for the Arad-Oradea expressway. If the Government adopts in the same sitting several decisions giving effect to court judgments on the same project, they can be merged into a single act, with one annex, or they can be given titles that tell them apart.
What should be changed
- The annex should have a column with the old sum and one with the difference. With them, the supplement in Article I could be checked from the published text itself, and the unexplained 40.42 lei would either close or be accounted for on the spot, without searching through the 2019 issue.
- Each entry should be tied to the case file it comes from. The act invokes two court judgments and amends two entries, but does not say which goes with which. A column with the case number would make it possible to compare the administrative valuation with the judicial one, case by case, and would show what each lost court case cost.
- Article II should describe exactly what the annex does. The wording has to cover the amendment of the identification details as well, not only of the sum, as the neighbouring decision in the same issue does. Otherwise the new line at entry no. 11 has no backing in the operative part.
- The payment deadline should start from a certain date. The 30 days from the approval of the request to open appropriations become verifiable only if the act also sets a deadline for submitting that request, say 15 days from the entry into force of the decision.
- Giving effect to final judgments should have a deadline of its own. A period of 90 days from the date a judgment becomes final would cut the 294 days in this case to less than a third and would replace a practice that varies from file to file with a rule.
- The National Company „Aeroporturi București” S.A. should publish an up to date record of the expropriation list. The list has more than 600 entries and was amended four times in 2026 alone. A public table, with the current value of each entry and the act that changed it, would spare everyone the job of reconstructing it from the Official Gazette of Romania and would show, at last, what the airport expropriation corridor costs in total.
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. 805 of 23 September 2026 16 pages PDF, 104 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.