Pre-sale Agreements in Residential Developments after Law 207/2025 – Formalisation, Pre-Unitisation and Advance Payment Control
The amendments introduced by Law no. 207/2025 fundamentally reshape how developers may contract future units in residential projects. The legal regime of pre-sale agreements is now explicitly anchored in the technical-cadastral compliance of the project, conditioning the ability to pre-contract on a minimum level of urbanistic and cadastral maturity: registration of the building permit, pre-unitisation of the future condominium and opening of individual land books for future units.
The first major consequence for developers is that pre-sale agreements can no longer function as an early-stage financing tool prior to the legal structuring of the future condominium. The revised provisions require that an authenticated pre-sale agreement be concluded only after the building permit has been registered and an individual land book exists for the future unit. In practical terms, the market is shifted from a “plan-based pre-sale” model to a “cadastrally-identified unit pre-sale” model.
Pre-unitisation therefore becomes the legal pivot of off-plan sales. The law expressly introduces, for the first time, the concept of a land book for an individual unit as a future asset, opened on the basis of preliminary cadastral documentation and an authenticated pre-unitisation deed. This enables early legal individualisation of units while preserving a degree of developer flexibility: the number of units may still be modified without purchaser consent, except where the location or surface of the promised unit itself is altered.
A second core component of the reform concerns the financial discipline of advance payments. Amounts paid under pre-sale agreements must be deposited into a dedicated project bank account and may be used only in staged, certified construction phases (structure and subsequently installations), with validation by the site supervisor. Use for other purposes triggers administrative sanctions of up to 1% of the developer’s turnover. In substance, the regime introduces a functional ring-fencing mechanism for project cash-flow, akin to a statutory escrow.
The law also clarifies reservation agreements, previously only loosely regulated. Reservations are now capped at 60 days and at 5% of the price, under penalty of absolute nullity. If the pre-sale or sale does not proceed due to the developer’s fault, the amount must be refunded within 30 days. In practice, this significantly curtails the prior use of reservations as quasi-pre-sales or informal financing instruments.
For notaries and practitioners, a notable novelty is the obligation on the notary to apply for registration of the pre-sale agreement in the land book on the same day or at the latest the next working day. This gives the authenticated pre-sale immediate opposability and materially reduces the risk of double-selling or competing promises. From a transactional standpoint, land-book registration becomes an integral element of closing rather than a subsequent formality.
Overall, the amendments consolidate a “cadastre-first, sale-after” development model. For developers, the impact is twofold: higher cost and lead time in the pre-contract phase (cadastral documentation, pre-unitisation, dedicated accounts), but reduced litigation and reputational risk associated with off-plan sales. For lenders and purchasers, the regime provides materially stronger protection through fund traceability and early legal individualisation of the unit.
From a real-estate practice perspective, the legislative signal is clear: the pre-sale agreement is no longer an instrument for advance project financing, but a legal act presupposing the existence of a future unit already configured cadastrally and embedded in an authorised, preliminarily unitised project. Consequently, contractual structures and development timelines must be recalibrated, and purchaser due diligence will increasingly shift from the physical construction stage to the legal-cadastral status of the project.