Expert: Jim Root - 12/4/2009

Question
Hi,

my name is Anatoly and I am from Ukraine. I did not find a proper category for my inquiry, neither I can find solution in my national environment, and this is why I decided to contact professionals to help me understand the problem better.

All estates and buildings are located in definite places, which we call administrative units and territories, i.e. every house has an address which has to be obligatory associated with a definite legal territory.

Some 5-6 years ago we started preparations for privatisation of the former state-owned appartment in a 4-family house. This is a normal legal procedure stipulated by the ex-USSR and Ukrainian laws. In practice it requires to give an application to the local authorities with indication of your residential address. This address is an exremely important category for an ex- Soviet Empire citizen, interlaced with the residence registration stamp in the passport. Sometimes when people want to kniw the residential address, they just say: O.K, let's see what is written in your passport, and there it is. But in practice our family encountered a very sad case of total loss of control over the real residence location.


Our house stands on the territiory which formerly was known as a village settlement. This village has a long history, and officially the village was located in the administrative region (Rayon), which belonged to a higher entity, called Oblast. This was in strict coordination with the existing law of the territorial division in the former USSR. It is used everywhere in all the former USSR countries, like Russia, Belorus, etc.

In the former USSR times a person could get an appartment only by the official order issued by the estate owner. Our father received such order where it is exactly written: the name of the village, house and appartment number. Thus everyone in our family had an official registration in the USSR, which was the main basis for citizenship. We lived happily even not paying attention to some radical changes in the street name, house and appartment number. In the former Soviet Empire you could never get an answer. The authoritie could do absolutely everything they wanted. The registration process is effectuated by specific personnel under the auspice of the Ministry of the Internal Affairs, they have an exclusive privilege to put such stamps into passports of the citizens,  and it is very important for every person to make this registration as soon a spossible, otherwise the person is going to have problems, even get to prison. Meanwhile this procedure is not fixed by any law, and in favct Ministry of The Internal says that they have no relation to this.  Thus by the time of the fall of the regime and birth of the new independent Ukraine we had absolutely non-relevant stamps in the passports and address data.

Making  decision about privatisation is very important and thus as long as we knew about previous inconsistencies with our address, we started looking into documents, trying to analyze the location and limits of our future property. Since then for many years we are having numerous contacts with the authorites od all types, rrquiring documents. We have such questions – we have a definite name of the village and flat number, which does not correspond to actual data given in our passport. They say – the village had been incorporated into the territory of another bigger village (to the west), and later – taken from this bigger village to a new city (to the east). During these stages the numbering of houses in our street was first made from the western side (from another village), and after the last junction – from the eastern side (from the city). After this no one can tell for sure where is the initial number of the house. They changed the numbers of the appartments , and we had been registered conseqently in all possible appartments of our house (from 1 to 4). After that we are having appartment no.1 located on the second floor and appartment 4 is on the ground floor, and we had previously appartment 3 on the second floor. The house number changed similarly – we had initial house number 108-A, then we had been registered in house 108 (having residence in appartments 2, 3 and 4 in different periods), and then it became 164.  It is a matter of fact that we have serious doubts about what in fact we are going to privatize. The authorities say that house 108-A never existed. The authorities say that the house number 164 (we are registered officially in this house) is on the territory of the city. The authorities show no documental proofs of these facts. As we had been informed the city authorities say that only a part of our building of our house belongs to the city property (rural district). As for the pice of land it is standing on that land belongs to the village disctrict. No documents, too. And to make the things worse, recently e have had a meeting with a person who says that they own the house and the flat we are living in.

At the moment we are at a complete loss what to do. The city and Oblast authorities pay no attention to this problem. The police does not want to interfere (they cannot make any protocol as the territiory is undefined). The President, Government and The Supreme legiclastive organ just return our lettters to the Oblast, and fron there it goes to the city authorities who deny our implications and say that everyting is legal and just, and the problem is we do not want to  privitize the apparatment where we had been registered.

In fact we are living in the same place which corresponds to initial order of settlement. Butfofficially we had been registered in a, say, virtual house, belonging to third parties. And the authorities force us to make privatization,  this will completely delete their responsibilties for the state control of the privatization, and then we shall be forced with the real owners of the appartment who have all necessary papers prepared long ago before the split of thre USSR.

We are in the middle of the big swindle, and we do not want to be like thousands of other citizens who lost their property in similar situations.

Can anyone gice us advice on how to proceed, I understand that this is not a usual topic  for  non-Ukrainian residents, but still such problem exists. What would you do in this situation – leave your appartment and buy a new, legal one. Or sue someone properly.

I shall give any additional information, including copies of the documents.

Thank you for your advice.


Answer
Hello ANATOLY--

What a turmoil! Reading through your description of the troubles you are having is mind-boggling!Sometimes I get upset about our Government, our Real Property/Land Ownership System,our Real Estate Marketing & Sales procedures,etc, but what's going on with you and others in the Ukraine makes our minor Real Estate problems virtually disappear.

Of course there's nothing I can do directly to help you, but you asked what I would do in this situation.Wow--I can't even envision myself in that situation!

I think, however, things are so tangled up that leaving my Apartment and buying a new legal one is the only way to untangle & settle things and proceed with my life.Also, after acquiring ownership of the new Apartment, I would sue someone properly.

Anatoly, I'm so sorry that you and your family are going through such madness;I hope things work out for you.

--JIM