An Ordinance amending and supplementing Ordinance No RD-02-20-9 of 2012 on the Operation of the Unified Civil Registration System (the “Ordinance”) has been published for public discussion on the Public Consultation Portal.

The purpose of the amendments is to align the Ordinance with the innovations to the Civil Registration Act (“CRA”), which envisage a possibility for persons to be registered at a so-called “ex officio address” in certain circumstances.

Pursuant to CRA an “ex officio address” is an address of immovable property that is municipally owned, designated by the mayor of the municipality to carry out ex officio address registration of permanent and current address. In other words, certain categories of persons will be entitled to use an ex officio address as their permanent and/or current address in special cases provided for in the Ordinance.

The registration of ex officio address shall be done, for instance, in the following hypotheses:

1. Where an order has been made by the mayor of the municipality to exclude an address from the National Classification of Permanent and Current Addresses (“NCPCA”) - i.e. the person had a permanent/current address, but it was excluded from the NCPPA for some reason, the person has failed to file for a new address within one month and this requires an ex officio address to be provided for them;

2. If it is established by the competent authorities that the address registration has been carried out in violation of the law - for example, no proper document of ownership or occupancy has been presented or the number of persons registered at that address exceeds the normal number of persons who may occupy the property in question;

3. In the case of an application for a permanent address submitted by Bulgarian citizens who are registered in the population register, have a current address abroad and cannot provide a document of ownership/use of property located in the country;

4. For foreign nationals who have been granted refugee status, humanitarian status or who have been granted asylum;

5. In the case of students who are not accommodated in student residences due to lack of sufficient housing managed by the respective university, if they have not reflected another address.

The verification of the above circumstances will be carried out by a special committee, appointed by virtue of order of the mayor of the municipality, which is constituted by employees from the municipal administration and from the territorial structural units of the Ministry of Interior, the General Directorate of Civil Registration and Administrative Services of the Ministry of Regional Development and Public Works and the Social Assistance Agency.

The changes, if adopted, will raise interesting practical questions regarding the notification of persons registered at such ex officio address, for example, when serving letters from service providers, court papers, documents from government agencies, etc. related.