Premiere: The mayor of a town near Bucharest issued over 1,700 fines for lack of home insurance / What problems do people complain about and how do two authorities accuse each other

Several homeowners in Corbeanca, Ilfov county, were fined this month for the lack of mandatory home insurance, a first at the national level, given that no mayor has issued such fines in the over 15 years since this possibility has existed.

• Contacted by HotNews, officials of the city hall and the company that issues these insurances accuse each other of problems in interpreting the law and the information in the databases.

Homeowners in Romania are required by law to insure their homes against three natural risks: earthquakes, floods and landslides. The insurance costs 50 lei per year for adobe houses, for which you can receive a maximum of 50,000 lei in the event of a disaster, respectively 130 lei per year for more resistant houses, and based on the insurance you can receive compensation of a maximum of 100,000 lei if the home is destroyed.

Fines for lack of insurance are between 100 lei and 500 lei, but no mayor has fined his citizens in more than 15 years since the mandatory home insurance system became operational.

What are the residents of Corbeanca complaining about?

Things changed this month, however, when homeowners in Corbeanca, Ilfov county found themselves with fine notices for the lack of these insurances.

Several people complained about this on the “Corbeanca social community” Facebook page, with some claiming that they had been unfairly fined. A citizen indicates that he has PAD insurance valid until February 2026, but that he was fined because the insurance is in his wife's name, he being a co-owner.

“I also submit a problem for debate. I have PAD insurance valid until February 2026. I received information about the fine from Corbeanca City Hall, because the insurance is in the wife's name. I ask – what are we insuring, the house or the physical person? The answer of the city hall: “the husband should also be included on the insurance policy”. Will it be okay?”.

Someone else claims to have received a fine for a building declared non-residential: “I got one today too!! It's a building declared non-residential! Mr Senior Inspector (???) does he not know the law under which he imposes fines? The law is clear: Non-residential buildings (eg: commercial premises, offices, halls, warehouses, etc.) → are not required by law to have a PAD policy, but can be optionally insured through other types of policies (eg comprehensive property insurance)'.

PAID: The co-owners' fine is an erroneous interpretation

Contacted by HotNews, PAID Romania officials, the company that issues these insurances and pays compensation in case of disaster, confirmed that they received several complaints from people who are in this situation, who were asked by the Corbeanca town hall to transfer all their co-owners to the PAD contract.

“They only bring discomfort to the insured, since the insurance obligation is already fulfilled, on the PAD contract it is enough to mention one of the co-owners in the insured column (filling in the rest of the co-owners being optional) since, in case of damage, it is mandatory by law to verify the right of ownership in order to establish the right to compensation. In the event of the existence of several co-owners, the due compensation will be thus divide between the co-owners according to the share of property owned”, Cosmin Tudor, PAID Romania's deputy general director, told HotNews.ro.

He says that “PAID sent the town hall an address in which it mentioned all this and, in addition, recommended that the check between the list of insured houses in the commune (to which the town hall has digitized access) and the list of houses registered for fees and taxes should be done at the level of the house and not at the level of the owner, since the object of the insurance is the housing unit”.

“The PAID recommendation for all insured persons is: As I communicated to the town hall, on the PAD contract, in the “insured” section, the data of one of the co-owners must be filled in, filling in the rest of the co-owners is optional. Therefore, the legal obligation from L260/2008 is fulfilled when the home is insured even if not all co-owners are transferred to the PAD contract. The fining of co-owners who do not appear on the PAD contract in force is an erroneous interpretation,” said the PAID director.

He also stated that, “following the clarification address sent by the PAID to the town hall, the fine minutes of the co-owners of an already insured home, but which do not appear on the PAD contract, should be null or canceled by the issuer”.

How does PAID think this error occurred

“The town hall has access to the PAID database and can instantly see all the homes within the territorial administrative unit's radius. This database to which it has access includes each insured home with its address and also includes the name of the insured on the policy and CNP. According to the law, the insured is the owner of the home.

In the case of homes where there are several owners, called “co-owners”, such as husband and wife, or even several people following inheritances, it is not mandatory to write all of them on the PAD contract, it is enough to pass one,” explained the PAID director.

However, the same thing does not happen at the Tax and Tax Departments, where, according to the law, each co-owner has a tax ROL, emphasizes the director of PAID.

“In this way, the husband and wife each pay half of the house tax, the same in the case of several co-owners, each has a tax role and pays a share of the tax. Most likely, the town hall compared the lists from taxes and fees with the lists from PAID at the level of persons' CNPs and not, as it should be, at the level of insured housing. This resulted in lists of persons who, although appearing as co-owners for fees and taxes, do not appear in the database of PAID”, stated Cosmin Tudor, general director of PAID.

The mayor of Corbeanca: It's a vulnerability of the list we receive from PAID

Contacted by HotNews.ro, the mayor of Corbeanca, Ștefan Apăteanu (USR), confirmed that he started to apply fines following an address sent two months ago by the Prefecture, which signaled that the mayors have the obligation to apply the law on mandatory home insurance.

He explained that on the PAID Romania website there is a section for mayors where, based on access data, mayors can log in.

“From there I can download a spreadsheet when I want to apply the measure so that I know who are the ones who have paid this policy. After that, by comparing it with the fiscal ROLs we have at the town hall, we know who are the ones who have not paid their policy,” he said.

However, the mayor admitted that there were problems with the co-owners, but blames the list provided by PAID.

“Here is a vulnerability of the list we receive from PAID. Normally it should not only contain the identification data of the owner or co-owner, but the property's land register code. We have taken the measure of doing another check in these cases to eliminate these situations that are the exception, not the rule, in which they have indeed paid the insurance, but have also received a fine notice”, declared mayor Ștefan Apateanu.

He also stated that the town hall will analyze all these situations in which the fine was erroneously applied and if it turns out to be the case, the people will get their money back.

Almost 1,800 fines issued so far

The city hall later sent more information about the fines applied.

“At this stage, a number of 1,793 fines were generated for citizens who reside in the Corbeanca commune and who, in the cross-referenced records with the database generated by PAID, were identified as not having valid PAD insurance at the time of the verification. The value of the fines applied at this stage is 896,500 lei”, the Corbeanca City Hall announced.

Regarding the question asked about how many of the 1,793 people were co-owners, the City Hall says that the fines are applied per property, based on the address and as the property in question is a main grade property.

The city hall claims that “it has identified certain situations that could generate problems in the concrete application of the provisions of Law No. 260/2008, especially from the perspective of the people who have the status of co-owner”.

“Persons who have received fines in the amount of 500 lei have the right to pay half of the minimum provided by law, namely the amount of 50 lei, within 15 days of the communication of the report, which is also mentioned on the submitted reports”, states the mayor's office.

What errors would PAID's database allow?

The city hall also warns that PAID Romania expressly communicated that there is no legal obligation to include co-owners on the policy, but the database provided by them opens up the possibility of multiple errors, thus even resulting in the possibility of erroneously fining co-owners.

Corbeanca City Hall comes up with several examples, which it claims are “not assumed by PAID Romania and for which no application rules are thought of”:

1. “The PAD policy is drawn up on the basis of the data provided by the owner (in most cases not with official documents), or the address of the building is the one sent by the owner. If he does not communicate the exact address that also appears at the town hall (and in this hypothesis, it may appear erroneous if documents were issued that generated the change of address and which were not submitted by the owners: e.g. disassembly, bonding, changes of postal numbers, etc.), when these bases cross, it appears that the property has a different address in the town hall database and appears as uninsured.
2. If there are several co-owners on a property, there are no rules issued that state how to identify the co-owner who will be fined for not having the PAD policy.
3. If there are several co-owners of several buildings, who in turn are also exclusive owners with a 100% share of other buildings, the law does not mention how the fine is individualized for each individual building and which person is liable for committing the contravention.
4. If there are several buildings at the same address, the law requires the conclusion of the PAD policy for each individual building. If the owner communicated only one address at the conclusion of the PAD policy, without the individualization of each home, errors from the PAID can again be detected in the database, since the owner submits a policy on that address and we can actually have 3 or more properties, or the PAD policy concludes a single policy on a single address”.

According to address no. 568 of 20.10.2025 communicated by PAID Romania, there is the express mention that “only one of the co-owners can be transferred to the insurance policy”.

The city hall gave as an example a policy from which it follows that the other co-owners can also be mentioned on an insurance policy.

“At the time of issuing the insurance policy, the co-owners may not be included on it, if no mention is made of them, since the policy cannot be modified after issuance, there is only the way of issuing an annex for them. Where we find that due to the problems already reported previously, fines were issued based on a material error, the hypothesis of retraction of the fines thus issued was also taken into account”, the statement also states City hall.