Ownerless houses. What to do?

Unoccupied houses, falling into disrepair, present a sad sight. Both in rural areas and within city limits, there are houses where no one has lived for a long time for various reasons, and the land plots are neglected and cluttered. As a rule, it turns out that the owner has died, and the heirs are either absent or unwilling to bother with registering their rights and taking care of the inherited property. And sometimes the owner is completely unknown, the house was built without proper registration, and is essentially an unauthorized construction. It should be noted that property and land taxes are not paid into the treasury in such cases.

In accordance with Article 226 of the Civil Code of the Republic of Belarus, an ownerless thing is a thing that has no owner or whose owner is unknown, or a thing from which the owner has renounced ownership rights. Ownerless immovable property is registered by organizations for state registration of immovable property, rights to it and transactions therewith, upon application from the relevant state body, unless otherwise provided by legislative acts.

Ensuring the rational and efficient use of material resources and order on the land is entrusted to local executive and administrative bodies.

District, city (cities of regional subordination) executive committees, local administrations of districts in the city of Minsk: maintain registers of vacant houses and registers of dilapidated houses; post information from the registers of vacant houses and registers of dilapidated houses in open access on their official websites on the global computer network Internet.

In accordance with Decree of the President of the Republic of Belarus No. 357 of September 4, 2018 "On Vacant and Dilapidated Houses", residential buildings, in respect of which local executive and administrative bodies have established that persons having the right to own and use them have not lived in them for a single day during the last three years,

and in respect of which no notificationsof intent to use them for residence have been submitted to the local executive and administrative body, are recognized as vacant houses; residential buildings that are in a state of disrepair or are in danger of collapse, in respect of which the local executive and administrative bodies have established that persons having the right to own and use them have not resided in them for the last year and are not taking measures to restore these residential buildings for their intended use (or for their demolition), are recognized as dilapidated houses.

The Decree approved the Regulations on the procedure for working with vacant and dilapidated houses. Cases on recognizing property as ownerless and transferring it to communal ownership are considered by courts. The right to apply with a statement on recognizing property as ownerless is held by persons directly indicated in the normative legal acts regulating the consideration of cases of this category (for example, Articles 379and 380-1of the Civil Procedure Code), or their representatives, specially authorized by power of attorney. By virtue of Article 81of the Civil Procedure Code, the prosecutor has the right to apply with a statement on recognizing property as ownerless.

The prosecutor's office, exercising supervision over the enforcement of laws, decrees, and orders of the President of the Republic of Belarus by executive and administrative bodies, also exercises its right to apply to the courts with statements on recognizing vacant houses as ownerless, directly participating in the process of restoring order on the ground, especially in rural areas.

After the court decision enters into force, the local executive committee decides on the further use of the vacant house and the fate of movable property, or on the demolition of the vacant house. The residential building can be demolished, alienated to another person, or transferred to the local executive committee for further use. At the same time, the fate of the land plot on which such a house is located is also decided: the right to the land plot is terminated for the former landowner, then the land plot can be granted to the relevant local executive committee, a legal entity, or the acquirer of the vacant house.

Cultural development, morality, spirituality, and other intangible things depend to a significant extent on the conditions in which a person lives. It is very important that a person understands that the environment surrounding him, the attitude towards what was created by him or his ancestors, greatly influence the upbringing of the younger generation. Therefore, the task of local authorities is to establish cleanliness and order in settlements. The state undertakes the labor and expenses for improvement. Decree of the President of the Republic of Belarus No. 357 of 04.09.2018 is aimed precisely at these goals.

 

Head of the Department for Supervision of Compliance with the Law of Judicial Decisions in Civil Cases

of the Regional Prosecutor's Office

Irina Titkova