Large land redistribution in Crimea: what happens with the property of Ukrainians

What will the Crimean redistribution of property turn out with?

Irina Mishina

It all started on March 20 last year. Then Vladimir Putin signed a decree according to which 19 of the 27 municipalities of Crimea, as well as areas in the Kaliningrad and Astrakhan regions, were recognized as border regions. And from March 21, 2021, by decree of the Russian president, foreigners are prohibited from owning land in most areas of Crimea.

In total, as of April 2020, foreigners in Crimea owned more than 11.5 thousand plots that fall under the decree of Vladimir Putin. The number of land owners in Crimea includes citizens of 55 foreign countries, most of them - almost 10 thousand - are Ukrainians, individuals or legal entities.

From March 20 last year to March 20 this year, for such people, according to Russian laws, there were several options for solving the problem. For 12 months, the Ukrainian landowner could either sell his Crimean land plot, or donate it, or transfer it to the municipality by concluding a lease agreement. There was, however, another option: to take Russian citizenship and re-register the land with your Russian passport.

To date, 10 thousand Ukrainian land owners in Crimea have been subject to the decree of the Russian president. Whether the family of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will be among them is a question. It is known that his wife Yelena in Yalta owns a 129-meter apartment and a 16-meter parking space. Zelenskys pay utility bills regularly, according to the Crimean authorities. According to the presidential declaration, they do not own land now. But the land will be forcibly alienated from the head of the Constitutional Court of Ukraine Oleksandr Tupitsky. He owns a 690-meter plot in Yalta. His house with an area of 221 square meters was built on it. Oksana Marchenko, the wife of Ukrainian Rada deputy Viktor Medvedchuk, owns 5,620 meters of land in Yalta - their house with an area of 371 square meters was built there.

“The land issue has spoiled the Crimeans”, - says the Crimean journalist Alexander Gorny. "The decree of the President of Russia was not announced ahead of time in the public domain and commented on by the Crimean authorities, as a result, now the courts are overflowing with claims, there are huge queues to notaries".

Crimean lawyer Mikhail Danilenko also tells Novye Izvestia about the queues at notary and law offices. According to him, they knew about the decree of the Russian president and the inclusion of most of Crimea in the list of border areas, but due to quarantine restrictions due to the pandemic, entry to Crimea was restricted for a long time, so citizens of Ukraine and other countries did not have time to re-register or sell property. ... This has caused many human tragedies.

“In such a situation, it would be wise to extend the implementation of this decree in connection with the pandemic. Or to organize special centers on the territory of Ukraine in order to bring the documents in line with Putin's decree”, - said the Crimean lawyer Mikhail Danilenko.

On social networks, there are many stories of those who were taken by surprise by the decree of the Russian president . So, Livejournal published the story of Lyudmila from Kiev. At the beginning of last year, a woman inherited a house in the Belgorod region. The lands of this region are included in the border lands and are sold on the same basis as now in the Crimea. After entering into the right of inheritance, the Kiev woman, according to Russian laws, had the right to own the land on which her house was built. But the woman did not manage to sell the house with the plot. The reason was the coronavirus pandemic, due to which entry into the region is prohibited. As a result, the woman was unable to come to the Belgorod region to carry out the sale. In the end, the Kiev woman received a letter from the local municipality. She was notified that the land would either be sold at auction or the state would become the owner. Now the woman has filed a lawsuit. In a statement, she asked that the quarantine period not count towards the permitted period of land ownership.

"The lawyers I turned to said that the auction process and the court on such issues is not a quick matter. Maybe I will be lucky, I will have time to come and sell the house along with the land. From the sale I can gain about 500 thousand rubles - this is so much for me the neighbors offer. But from this amount I will have to pay 30% of the tax as a non-resident", - says Lyudmila.

If Lyudmila from Kiev fails to win the court, the land under the house will go to the municipality.

“According to the Land Code, plots of land in Russia cannot belong to foreign citizens. But at the same time, the property rights regime does not apply to real estate. Let's say the hotel is on a plot of land. Land and real estate are different subjects of law. By the way, nothing is said about real estate in Putin's decree. But Rosreestr has an explanation on this matter: the owners of such objects can contact the municipality and draw up a lease agreement for a land plot for a real estate object. Thus, the land plot can be rented and tax paid on the property. That is, houses built on the ground will not be confiscated. But the sold land, on which they are erected, will have to be rented, and the former owner will have the primary lease right. As for legal entities that own land in Crimea, they could have taken this path: to sell the land to a Russian legal entity, and then transfer it to the ownership of a Russian legal entity with foreign participation", - Crimean lawyer, specialist in land law Mikhail Danilenko told Novye Izvestia...

The Russian authorities promise that the Crimean land will be leased at market prices. It's no secret that land in Crimea is not cheap. Here are the prices for renting land in Crimea - the prices are taken from open sources: 20 acres, Simferopol - 100 rubles per month (37.4 thousand hryvnias); 15 acres, Alushta - 20 thousand rubles a month (7.4 thousand hryvnias); 7 acres, Dobroe village - 25 thousand rubles a month (9.3 thousand hryvnias). The rental price of land for industrial facilities is higher: 40 acres, Evpatoria - 45 thousand rubles a month (16.9 thousand hryvnia); 2.9 acres, Kerch - 35 thousand per month (13 thousand hryvnia), 1.8 hectares, Bakhchisarai - 100 thousand rubles per month (37 thousand hryvnia); 18 acres, Sevastopol - 200 thousand per month (47 thousand hryvnia).

Property re-registration is not easy. According to lawyers defending property rights in Crimea, after the annexation of Crimea to Russia in 2014, the property of about 480 enterprises was transferred to the ownership of new entities. Today, there are about a hundred property disputes in the courts. The issue reached the Constitutional Court. The reason for the open hearings in the Constitutional Court was the norms of the regional law "On the specifics of regulating property and land relations in the territory of the Republic of Crimea" and the corresponding resolution of the State Council of Crimea. Relying on them, the Crimean officials terminate the rights of individuals to assets, land and real estate from the moment they are included in the list of regional property "recorded as the property of Crimea." Russian courts, including the Supreme Court, recognize this practice as legal. Previous owners rarely manage to defend their rights in courts. In theory, this opens the way for an appeal in international courts. But this path is not easy and hardly productive. “After making well-known amendments to the Russian Constitution, the decision of a foreign court on the territory of Russia can be ignored and invalidated if it damages the Russian Federation. Was it possible to do without this decree? Of course you can. But this, apparently, is a kind of message to the whole world: “Crimea is ours,” and this is not discussed. Putin's decree is a kind of sign: there is no need for foreign investors in Crimea. On the other hand, this decree will give preferences in Crimea to Russian businessmen who enjoy Putin's trust”, - political analyst Dmitry Oreshkin believes.

There are, however, a lot of these preferences. As you know, Yuri Kovalchuk today is the largest winemaker and landowner in Crimea. He will receive working highly profitable enterprises, as well as his own estate on 3.8 hectares with a low lease. Arkady Rotenberg, who financed the construction of the Crimean Bridge, was also not in the red: the companies associated with the oligarch acquired the famous Crimean health resorts. In July 2018, the Crimean authorities sold the famous Miskhor, Dyulber and Ai-Petri sanatoriums to the LLC “Management Company of Infrastructure Projects” associated with Rotenberg.

Kiev did not recognize the decree of the President of Russia and said that after the return of Crimea, they would take steps to restore the rights of owners who "lost their property during the annexation". "The decree is legally null and void and does not entail legal consequences for Ukraine. After the restoration of the sovereignty of our state in Crimea, the violated rights of legal owners to land plots will be restored", - said Oleg Nikolenko, speaker of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.

But all the "tidbits" of the Crimean land, it seems, have long been distributed among Russian VIPs.

Disputes are now taking place over small lands. However, it is not only about land and property. “One of the consequences of V. Putin’s decree is the isolation of Russia”, - political scientist Dmitry Oreshkin believes. - We are increasingly turning into a closed world. The information and legal curtain falls".