Amendments to the Housing Act have been submitted to parliament, with a proposal to adopt them under an expedited procedure. They give citizens who have lived for decades in state-owned and formerly socially owned flats a new deadline - until 31 December 2027 to apply to buy, to transfer the right of use, or to rent.

That is the good news. The bad news is in the same law, a few articles further down: anyone who submits nothing will be evicted.

The procedure is described without much decoration. Anyone who has not applied by 31 December 2027 will receive written notice that they are required to do so by 31 March 2028. Once that deadline passes - forcible eviction.

Who is covered

This concerns citizens living in properties allocated on various grounds: expropriation of property, demolition of residential buildings, or because their previous homes were derelict and at risk of collapse. They need a temporary-use contract signed before 16 May 1998.

Also covered are residents of socially owned flats who did not apply to buy or rent by 31 December 2024. Many of them, or members of their households who stayed in the flats after the death of the rights holder, did not use the earlier deadlines - and some had no legal means to submit such an application at all.

So some of the people now facing eviction were not previously allowed even to file a piece of paper.

Four categories by income

The new element is the categorisation. Residents are split into four groups based on the total income of the household:

People at social risk - recipients of social assistance or permanent financial support. People on low incomes - up to one and a half average net salaries. People on average incomes - between one and a half and two and a half average net salaries. People on high incomes - above two and a half average net salaries.

This division directly determines the outcome. People at social risk will only be able to apply to rent the flat, on favourable terms. The other three categories may both rent and buy. Whoever signs a rental contract first can later apply for full purchase - which permanently completes the privatisation of this housing stock.

The deadline is realistic, being informed is not

The logic of the law makes sense. A housing stock cannot be carried indefinitely as unresolved, and the state has a right to know who lives in its property and on what terms.

Except that every previous deadline is evidence that the mechanism does not work simply by being published. The end-of-2024 deadline expired and hundreds of families submitted nothing. Some because they did not know. Some because they had no documents. Some because the rights holder had died and the heirs did not know what they were supposed to do.

If the state wants this round to end in purchases rather than evictions, the job is not done by publishing in the official gazette. The job is whether a notice reaches every one of those households that a person can actually read and understand - what exactly to submit, where, and with which documents.

Otherwise, for some of the people who have lived in the same place for thirty years, 31 March 2028 will not be a deadline. It will be a moving day.