For someone living abroad there is a second problem on top of the first. The letter arrives in Bulgarian, often at an address you no longer use, and the period for appealing runs from the moment it was served, not from the moment you understood it.
What this covers
Appeals against administrative acts. Disputes with a municipality over construction, planning, trading permissions, local taxes and refuse charges. Tax assessments and audits. Fines and penalty notices. Silent refusal, where an institution simply does not reply.
When to instruct a lawyer
As soon as you receive a document that has a deadline in it. From that point every day counts, and once the period has passed there is no appeal, however wrong the decision was.
If you own property in Bulgaria and live elsewhere, it is worth making sure correspondence reaches someone who reads it. Most avoidable administrative problems in this area are avoidable for that reason alone.
One thing people get wrong
Silence from an institution is not a refusal you can ignore. It can be appealed, and it has its own deadline.