Attachments
The Legal Aid Working Group of the Protection Cluster, based on the analysis of information provided by its members and collected from open sources, identified the following current legal issues in July 2024.
Housing, land and property issues
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Damage to common areas in apartment buildings. According to Clause 14 of the Decree of the CMU dated on 21th April 2023 No. 381, applicants with damaged apartments located in an apartment building in which the common areas are damaged will get refusals for compensation for the damaged housing. The barrier is at the legislative level as the legislation does not establish the procedure and sources of funding for repair works in common areas, so the repair of common areas may not be carried out for months, which is an obstacle for owners to receive compensation for their damaged housing. While the problem is being resolved at the legislative level, funding for repairs to common areas in apartment buildings by humanitarian organizations would allow people to receive compensation for damaged apartments. Interestingly, it was reported that 140 apartment buildings in the Kyiv Oblast, in which housing cooperatives were formed, were restored under the program "VidnovyDIM" which became an alternative option to overcome the issue with restoration of the common areas.
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Amended procedure for state registration of property rights. CMU’s Resolution dated 5th July 2024 No. 785 amended the procedure for state registration of property rights, which partially settled the problem of registration of two types of joint ownership in one object at the same time, namely: joint partial and joint shared ownership. Following these changes, for determining the share of one of the co-owners in a joint shared ownership, the state registrar during the state registration of the right of joint partial ownership of such co-owner will conduct it also in relation to other coowners based on the principle of their equality. However, such a mechanism cannot always be implemented in practice.
For example, if the real estate object is already registered in the State Registry of Property Rights (hereinafter – SRPR), such registration based on the principle of equal distribution of shares between co-owners is impossible, since records of ownership have already been entered in the SRPR. Entering data on shares, in accordance with the State Registration Procedure, is possible only during the initial (primary) registration state. There is not yet a procedure for making changes (adding shares) to an already registered object. -
Ownership registration of real estate purchased based on stock exchange. To receive compensation for damaged or destroyed immovable property, it is mandatory to submit information to the SRPR. In most cases, state registrars refuse to submit information about real estate to the SRPR if the ownership was acquired based on a stock exchange agreement and registered by the BTI (Bureau of Technical Inventory) before 1 st of January 2013, if the applicant doesn’t have a respective court decision. Although some state registrars carry out the registration of such property, referring to the Clarification Letter of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine dated om 25th December 2023 No. 171014/Б41627/8.4.4, in most cases, the registration of ownership is possible only after receiving a court decision on recognition of the exchange agreement as valid.