Public work executed on the plaintiffs’ land, without the initiation of the expropriation procedure. Right to compensation. Obligation of the public authorities to take steps for expropriation purposes. Conditions. Limits

DREPT CIVIL ȘI DREPT PROCESUAL CIVIL

Abstract

Given that the estate is already occupied by the work of public utility, an action to initiate the expropriation of the respective estate is admissible, and to this end the judicial practice in the matter was pronounced, both at the European and at the national level.

The assertions according to which there is no expropriation and an expropriation de facto is not possible, cannot be accepted, since as long as the expropriation procedure was initiated for an estate, and the public work for which the expropriation should have been made was already executed, however, without completing the expropriation procedure which the public authority was obliged to complete, the owner of the affected estate should clarify the legal situation of his building, and either those aspects according to which the initiation or start of the expropriation procedure includes an appropriateness element which cannot be requested and called into question by the owner of the estate. If the public work for which the expropriation should have been made was already executed, the appropriateness element is not applicable, as the execution of this work itself  provides the legal nature of the relationships between the concerned parties. 
As long as neither the appropriateness of expropriation, nor that of establishing the estates to be expropriated is called into question, as they have already been established, the owner’s right to determine compensation cannot be limited as long as he is entitled to clarify the legal situation of an estate already occupied with the work of public interest which was considered and executed, without the prior completion of the expropriation 
procedure. 
Dealing with the claim of the person whose land is already occupied by the work of public interest, the court does not replace the executive authority, however, it reconciles the legal situation of the estate, with the actual state of affairs when it requests the expropriation  procedure to be completed, which involves also the payment of the compensation and the granting of the legal status of expropriated land for the land concerned.