You're reading: List of laws taking effect from Jan 1, 2013: Real estate and land utilization

From January 1, 2013 some laws regulating legal relations in the real estate and land utilization areas took effect. 

The law on amendments to the law on the state registration of ownership rights to property.

From January 1, 2013 ownership rights to property are registered under a new procedure.

A lawyer of Arzinger law firm, Yulia Pelekh, told Interfax-Ukraine that ownership rights to land plots, buildings and facilities will be registered in the single state register of ownership rights to immovable property.

With the introduction of the single state register, functions of registering ownership rights to immovable property of land resource bodies (regarding land plots) and technical inventory bureau (regarding other property) are transferred to the State Registration Service of Ukraine.

Functions of state registrars are fulfilled by notaries, which is a positive step, as it is possible to register ownership rights to land plots and property in the same place – at notaries, the lawyer said.

The law on the state land cadastre.

According to the law, the state land cadastre is a single state database of information about land plots located in Ukraine, their target use, restrictions for their use and data on the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of land plots, their assessment and distribution of land plots among owners and users.

The State Land Agency acts as an administrator of the state land cadastre.

A land plot can be subject to civil rights (for example, subject to ownership right or subject to leasing) only after its formation – its inclusion in the state land cadastre and the assigning of the cadastral number.

The registration of any ownership right, for example, ownership right to a land plot or right to lease a land plot, is possible only when the land plot is registered in the land cadastre.

The land plot is registered in the land cadastre on the basis of an application of the owner and document on land utilization. An extract from the land cadastre is issued to confirm the registration of the land plot. From 2012, the extract replaces the state act to land plots, which are canceled from January 1, 2013.

The registration of the land plot and registration of ownership right to it are carried out in the single window mode – the applicant can apply to the cadastre registrar and the cadastre registrar will register ownership rights to the land plot.

The law on amendments to some Ukrainian laws regarding the increaseof responsibility and improvement of state regulation in the town-planning sphere.

The size of fines for infringements in the town-planning sphere are increased.

According to the law, a fine for citizens who ordered the construction of a facility is increased to 50 non-taxable minimum incomes of citizens for violation of construction requirements, state standards, rules and draft decisions approved during the construction, reconstruction, modernization, overhaul of buildings and facilities.

If the non-observation of the requirements and laws is registered repeatedly, the fine for citizens who ordered the project and officials totals 100 non-taxable minimum incomes of citizens.

In addition, a fine of 400 non-taxable minimum incomes of citizens is imposed on citizens who ordered the construction of a facility and officials for beginning of preparation works without the declaration on the start of the works and for reporting untrue data in the declaration. A fine of 1,000 non-taxable minimum incomes of citizens is imposed for the fulfillment of preparation works without the registration of the relevant declaration.

A fine for performance of construction works without the notification amounts to 100 non-taxable minimum incomes of citizens for citizens who ordered the construction of a facility and officials.

Fines for construction works fulfilled without the registration of the declaration on the start of their implementation total from 1,000 for the first difficulty category facilities to 7,000 non-taxable minimum incomes of citizens for the fifth difficulty category facilities.

The law introduces personal responsibility of chief architect (engineer) of the project for the transfer of project documents, which were drawn up with non-observation of law, to the customer and this implies a fine of 5,000 non-taxable minimum incomes of citizens.