Real estate

When concluding a real estate transaction — the purchase or sale of an apartment, a house or a land plot — a great many legal nuances inevitably arise, and a person without legal education and the relevant specialisation cannot always answer them correctly.

This lack of protection is often exploited by swindlers and fraudsters. As a result, when concluding transactions buyers may lose money, time, nerves and, most often, health.

As a rule, only an attorney specialising in real estate, or a professionally trained real estate lawyer who knows if not all then the vast majority of both openly criminal and semi-legal schemes for deceiving buyers — from the banal forgery of documents to enormous construction frauds — can withstand professional fraudsters.

Having worked for more than three and a half years as an investigator of economic crimes and having later become an attorney (I advised and continue to advise several firms engaged in the construction of both individual and multi-apartment residential buildings), I know first-hand about the problems arising in transactions involving the acquisition of real estate.

Of course, when buying an apartment you can do nothing at all and rely on the decency and good faith of the seller — or of the real estate agent, who bears no responsibility whatsoever for the transaction should any legal problems arise. That is the simplest approach, but far from the most sensible one.

In any case, the choice is yours: to handle the purchase of an apartment, house or land plot yourself and take full responsibility for the transaction, or to entrust a professional attorney with carrying out all the necessary pre-sale checks and confirming the legal cleanliness of the purchase and sale.

The cost of full support of a real estate purchase and sale transaction (apartment, house, land plot) is the equivalent of USD 100 in hryvnia at the rate on the day the agreement is concluded.

Warning: schemes involving lifetime maintenance contracts

Given the high demand for housing among residents of the capital and newcomers, schemes for selling apartments through the mechanism of lifetime maintenance contracts with low-income pensioners have become more active in Kyiv.

In particular, advertisements have appeared offering a so-called "social instalment plan", under which an apartment in the capital can allegedly be acquired for 30% of its market value with a monthly payment to the pensioner of, on average, up to UAH 2,000 plus utility bills.

Under Art. 744 of the Civil Code of Ukraine, by a contract of lifetime maintenance (care) one party (the transferor) transfers to the other party (the acquirer) the ownership of a residential building, an apartment or part thereof, other immovable property or property of significant value, in exchange for which the acquirer undertakes to provide the transferor with maintenance and (or) care for life.

Such contracts are notarised and are subject to State registration. In practice they conceal a number of serious risks for both parties, and each such transaction requires separate legal analysis before signing.

What the legal support of a transaction includes

• verification of the seller's title documents and of the history of ownership transfers
• checking the property for encumbrances, seizures, mortgages and court disputes
• verification of the rights of third parties, including minors and persons registered at the address
• analysis of the risks of challenging previous transactions
• drafting and legal review of the purchase and sale agreement
• accompanying the transaction at the notary and control over the settlement procedure
• support of the State registration of the transfer of ownership

Legal support of the purchase and sale of an apartment, house or land plot is provided in Kyiv and the Kyiv region; in other regions of Ukraine — by arrangement.