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Legal due diligence of land

Юрист по земельным вопросам

We recommend you to conduct detailed audit and professional audit of the land before purchase or registration of the land lease.

So, buyers of land may have the following legal risks:

  • land documents are false;
  • seller of land is not an owner of land;
  • land is actually located in other place than specified in documents;
  • boundaries of land are expanded to next / neighboring land;
  • land is allocated to the primary owner with a gross violation of the current legislation;
  • if there are hidden arrests of land (including arrests imposed in criminal proceedings);
  • process of change the intended purpose of land is illegal;
  • master plan of settlement does not provide intended purpose of land included in legislative documents.

Legal due diligence assists to minimize or exclude legal risks connected with purchase or lease of land.

Specialists of the Law Office of Andriy Lotysh provide the following services in legal audit of the land:

Legal audit, lawyer’s consultation in land issues:

Experienced real estate lawyer in Kyiv of our company gives advice in all issues of the Land Law regarding a proper ownership, use and disposal of land lots. As well as about safety purchase of land as by the citizens and by companies registered under the Law of Ukraine.

In addition, we give advices to foreign companies as to purchase of non-agricultural land.

Legal analysis of legislative documents to land:

In this case, there is processed information about landowner and grounds of acquiring ownership to land by him/her.

The specified information is verified separately in the State Register of Proprietary Rights to immovable property, Public Cadastral Map and in the Registers of the State Registration, Cadastre and Cartography Service.

Legal due diligence analysis of land purchase by the primary owner:

Please pay attention to the process of registration of documents by a person who previously was allocated the land by the local authority decision.

In practice, the local executive authorities may allocate land lots to the citizens as free of charge privatization (within regulations provided by the Land Code of Ukraine). Or transfer land lots to individuals / legal persons into ownership, lease under transactions required payments (under the results of public sale).

Research of history of land ownership transfer from the primary owner to the present:

There is carried out legal expertise of all procedures in ownership land re-registration under the sale and purchase, gift, exchange contracts, court decisions on change of the owner, and in accordance with documents on property registration in the authorized capital of companies and so on.

Processing of information about possible encumbrances to land:

When purchase land, there may be available different restrictions, arrests of land. These encumbrances are registered in most cases by credit contracts, mortgage agreements or based on court resolution. In some criminal cases, arrests are imposed on the property of third persons (landowners) not parties in the criminal proceeding.

Before purchase of land, it is necessary to detect all stated encumbrances and hereby to remove them off the State Register of Proprietary Rights on immovable property.

Analysis of the land special purpose:

According to the Article 19 of the Land Code of Ukraine, land lots may have the following special purpose:

  • agricultural;
  • residential and public buildings;
  • natural-reserved, other environmental purposes;
  • healthy purpose;
  • recreational purpose;
  • historical and cultural purpose;
  • forestry purpose;
  • water fund;
  • industry, energetics, transports, communications, defense and other purposes.

Real estate lawyer in Kyiv processes in details the specified issues and proper land documentation. In order to determine, if the special purpose of the land complies with the specified purpose in the State Land Ownership Act or in the land sale and purchase contract, or in other significant documents (General plan of the community, Detailed plan of the territory). In addition, there is determined a possibility to use this land for purposes of buyer or landholder: farming, construction of housing or commercial real estate, disposition of storage premises and others.

Check if there are boundaries laid on neighboring land lots:

Laying one land boundaries on another is the most common ground for litigation. To detect these circumstances, we involve specialized geodesy companies for land audit which carry out necessary land topographic survey. Because of which, it is possible to identify the real location of land lot as well as if the land lot boundaries are laid on neighboring territories.

Verification of present legal cases (in common, economic or administrative courts):

Real estate lawyer carefully researches information obtained from the Register of Court Decisions. Herewith, the information is searched under a cadastral number of land lots, its address or under identification information of landowner or landholder. These actions allow us to get know if the ownership is disputed by neighboring owners, state authorities, or if there are disputes about boundaries and others.

Why is the legal due diligence (audit) of land need?

Legal due diligence of land, in Kyiv city and Kyiv Region and other regions of Ukraine, allows a buyer does not loss ownership to purchased land in further through avoiding and prevention of possible conflicts with state and law enforcement agencies as well as legal cases about invalidation of the land sale and purchases agreements.

The cost for legal audit of land depends on complexity of case and availability of necessary documents. Details about all necessary financial expenses (amount for lawyer’s reward, state duties and fees, administrative payments for extract issuance, extracts from the state registers and others) is given after Legal advice in the office of the Law Office.