Dear Liviu,

In Hungary in 1990 there was no restitution law at all. Anyhow, exceptionally in the area, there was no real restitution afterwards, it was rather "compensation" ("kárpótlás", this is a good search term as well) that started in 1991.

I think this could be a good start for you:

http://igazsagugyiinformaciok.kormany.hu/karpotlas

In this site there are references to specific laws (especially "1991. évi XXV. törvény" aka. "Kárpótlási törvény" [XXVth law of 1991, or law on compensation] could be of interest). If you want to into more details, there was an authority "Kárpótlási Hivatal" established somewhat later which had been dealing with the claims, its documents should be available (those not involving personal data).

I am not a jurist, my family was just involved in this issue (as many other families). I hope this helps.

Kind regards, Balázs

Dear Balasz,

Many thanks for your kind response, it helps.

I have some familiarity with the Hungarian compensation laws (in English there is also an excelent literature on the shortcommings of these laws),  but  what I am trying to argue is that these compensation/restitution laws in post-communist Europe are just in their name about "restitution." And that generally, they do not correspond to what the civil lawyers understand by the term restitution. Indicating the definition of "restitution" in the civil codes in force during real existing socialism, I can show somehow that "restitution" already existed, and does not have reinvented by socialist lawmakers (for their benefit, of course...I would be curios to find out whether the politicians or their proxies, in Hungary were able to benefit from these laws-by buying property, for example...; this is a topic not well tackled in the English literature). So this is why I asked for definitions of restitution in the civil codes...it is easily to show that compensation/restitution laws diverge in their fundamental traits from what was understood as restitution in 1989...

Otherwise, I dream that we will be able to have sometime in the future an oral history project, where all these encounters with post-communist laws on "restitution" could be recorded (including yours and your family)...so the future generations know how chaotic were the first years of post-communism.

With my thnaks and the best wishes,

Liviu

Dear Liviu, I am not sure if you would be interested in the Spanish Civil Code. I suggest you the official traduction of the Spanish Civil Code, available at: 

http://www.mjusticia.gob.es/cs/Satellite/1292427177941?blobheader=application%2Fpdf&blobheadername1=Content-Disposition&blobheadervalue1=attachment%3B+filename%3DSpanish_Civil_Code_%28Codigo_Civil%29.PDF

Best wishes and regards, 

Joaquín.