The Treaty of Peace (Bulgaria) Order 1948

Article 25

1.  Each of the Allied and Associated Powers shall have the right to seize, retain, liquidate or take any other action with respect to all property, rights and interests which at the coming into force of the present Treaty are within its territory and belong to Bulgaria or to Bulgarian nationals, and to apply such property or the proceeds thereof to such purposes as it may desire, within the limits of its claims and those of its nationals against Bulgaria or Bulgarian nationals, including debts, other than claims fully satisfied under other Articles of the present Treaty. All Bulgarian property, or the proceeds thereof, in excess of the amount of such claims, shall be returned.

2.  The liquidation and disposition of Bulgarian property shall be carried out in accordance with the law of the Allied or Associated Power concerned. The Bulgarian owner shall have no rights with respect to such property except those which may be given him by that law.

3.  The Bulgarian Government undertakes to compensate Bulgarian nationals whose property is taken under this Article and not returned to them.

4.  No obligation is created by this Article on any Allied or Associated Power to return industrial property to the Bulgarian Government or Bulgarian nationals, or to include such property in determining the amounts which may be retained under paragraph I of this Article. The Government of each of the Allied and Associated Powers shall have the right to impose such limitations, conditions and restrictions on rights or interests with respect to industrial property in the territory of that Allied or Associated Power, acquired prior to the coming into force of the present Treaty by the Government or nationals of Bulgaria, as may be deemed by the Government of the Allied or Associated Power to be necessary in the national interest.

5.  The property covered by paragraph I of this Article shall be deemed to include Bulgarian property which has been subject to control by reason of a state of war existing between Bulgaria and the Allied or Associated Power having jurisdiction over the property, but shall not include:

(a) Property of the Bulgarian Government used for consular or diplomatic purposes;

(b) Property belonging to religious bodies or private charitable institutions and used for religious or charitable purposes;

(c) Property of natural persons who are Bulgarian nationals permitted to reside within the territory of the country in which the property is located or to reside elsewhere in United Nations territory, other than Bulgarian property which at any time during the war was subjected to measures not generally applicable to the property of Bulgarian nationals resident in the same territory;

(d) Property rights arising since the resumption of trade and financial relations between the Allied and Associated Powers and Bulgaria, or arising out of transactions between the Government of any Allied or Associated Power and Bulgaria since October 28, 1944;

(e) Literary and artistic property rights.