A man died and had no direct heirs; only a sister survived him. Soon after his death, an individual of Roma origin appeared as a claimant in a notary public office in the town of Elin Pelin, 24km east of Sofia. He presented a will, supposedly signed by the deceased, which appointed him as the sole heir of an apartment in the capital's centre. Based on the will, a title deed was issued in the claimant's favour. The man also showed a promissory note stating that the deceased owed him a certain amount of money due immediately.

This could be the opening scene of a crime thriller, and in some way probably is, for it is only an example of how the real estate mafia in Bulgaria operates. The existence of such a mafia and the fact that it receives the assistance of some lawyers and notaries was conceded at a national conference hosted by the Union of Bulgarian Law Professionals on October 31 2008. Entitled Property Frauds - Problems and Counteraction, the conference gathered state officials and representatives from the Notary Chamber, the Supreme Bar Council, the Supreme Judicial Council, and the Supreme Court of Cassation, among others. President Georgi Purvanov opened the conference by agreeing that there was a real estate mafia and that all institutions should liaise to neutralise its activities.

According to Marinela Miteva from the Inspectorate of the Supreme Judicial Council, who told the aforementioned story, the lack of any interdepartmental co-ordination drags some cases on for years without the passing of a sentence. The prosecution tended to overlook obvious leads in cases that, if acted upon in a timely fashion, could have better safeguarded civil interest, Miteva said. She added that, in most instances, there was a criminal network of lawyers, notaries and judges that had been doing business for a number of years. She said that the respective controlling bodies had failed to notice that usually the same players were involved. Miteva said in her report that such negligence was a direct result of undertrained staff and lack of adequate expertise. Alluding to the heavy bureaucracy plaguing the judicial system, she said that it was unacceptable that it takes almost a year between lodging a complaint at court and the first prosecution reaction.

"Too bad the President has already left," Chavdar Tonchev, a practicing lawyer, said as a prelude to a joke. "I could have suggested that he declare a state of emergency because property fraud in this country must have got way out of hand for the President himself to attend this conference."

Tonchev said that it was time for the long-postponed unified system giving access to personal data and municipal registers to be introduced. Expressing the collective will of many of his colleagues, Tonchev said that the guild had long ago agreed that documents with false data would be spotted if notaries had the means to verify information online. The most common fraud cases involved clients presented a power of attorney with forged signatures and false identification documents - such as lichna karta (Bulgarian ID) and a driver's licence, or used personal data of deceased people, Tonchev said.

"It's clear that most crimes are perpetrated in a recognisable style, so institutions should unite to stymie further examples," the lawyer said. If it comes to amending existing legislation, working professionals should be consulted for an approach that is more practical, he said.

"We need to re-think the functions of the Prosecutor's Office in this country," Valeri Purvanov (no relation to Georgi), a deputy prosecutor-general, said. "Breaking the law should be a major concern for all authorities concerned with better protecting the interests of Bulgarian citizens."

To give another example of how the real estate mafia bows before no one, Valeri Purvanov recalled the recent scandal involving the forged signature of Sofia mayor Boiko Borissov. The signature appeared on a contract, supposedly signed by Borissov in January 2008. The contract regulated the sale of a municipal land plot of 14 063 sq m in the borough of Strelbishte to Petar Drashkov, owner of a company called Sida-S. Based on that contract Drashkov acquired a title deed with his name on it. For the record, his brother, Ivan Drashkov, is a deputy chairperson of the National State Security and Borissov has expressed hopes that he would not interfere with the case. The mayor believes that such cases develop because the state and the criminal jurisdiction fail to apply adequate safeguards beforehand.

"Such cases should be assigned a higher priority, but to be honest, the Prosecutor's Office is overwhelmed with high priority cases," Valeri Purvanov said. "You name it - the European funds scandal, organised crime, corruption… It seems to me that we are trying to clean up after events happen rather than applying preventative measures," he said. Purvanov assured his audience that by the end of 2008, a newly formed working group would review current legislation and propose amendments.