Moscow law office "Kovalev Tugushi & partners"

NEW SIGNIFICANT AMENDMENTS PROPOSED TO THE FEDERAL LAW “ON STATE REGISTRATION OF PROPERTY RIGHTS TO REAL ESTATE”

The new Draft Law № 962484-7 On the introduction of amendments to the Federal Law ”On state registration of property rights to real estate” and other legislative acts of the Russian Federation in the area of cadastre and state registration of rights to real estate (on improvement of real estate registration system) (the Draft Law) was proposed for consideration in State Duma on May 27, 2020.
The Draft Law introduces the following amendments to legislation on state registration of property rights to real estate:
  • powers of Federal Cadastre Chamber of the Federal Service for State Registration, Cadastre and Cartography (Rosreestr) will be specified in Russian laws;
  • the Draft Law determines the procedure for registration of property transfer if the vendor of real estate is liquidated or excluded from the Unified State Register of Property Rights;
  • terms for registration of agreement for participation in shared construction are reduced;
  • a list of documents that can be filed through the use of private account on Rosreestr website is provided;
  • communication between multifunctional centers and Federal Cadastre Chamber is enhanced;
  • a list of persons who can apply for cadastre and state registration of is expanded.
The following powers of Federal Cadastre Chamber of the Federal Service for State Registration, Cadastre and Cartography will be included in the Federal Law “On state registration of property rights to real estate” № 218-FZ dated July 13, 2015 (Federal law “On registration of real estate”):
  • acceptance of applications on cadastre or state registration of rights and the attached documents, as well as the return of applications and the attached documents without consideration;
  • issuance of documents certifying cadastre or state registration of rights, other documents that are to be issued to applicants after cadastre and state registration of property rights;
  • provision of information and analytics based on data that is contained in the Unified Register of Property Rights;
  • cadastre division of Russian territory into cadastre circles and cadastre quarters (in cooperation with registration service) for the purposes of assigning numbers to real estate units;
  • maintenance and storage of register сases (books of register cases) on objects of Register of boundaries.
Rosreestr is currently the federal state agency authorized by Russian Government that carries out cadastre and state registration of property rights, maintenance of the Unified State Register of Property Rights (USRPR) and provision of information contained in USRPR. The Federal state budgetary agency “Cadastre Chamber of the Federal Service for State Registration, Cadastre and Cartography” is the subordinate agency of Rosreestr and is empowered to perform certain actions on registration of property rights to real estate[1].
The procedure for registration of property transfer if the vendor of real estate is liquidated or excluded from the Unified State Register of Property Rights as non-operating legal entity is determined.
Under the Draft Law if at the moment of filing the application for state registration of property right transfer the legal entity being the vendor is liquidated or excluded from the USRPR, the registration of property right transfer is conducted on basis of the following documents provided by the buyer:
  • application for registration of property right transfer;
  • extract from the USRPR certifying the inclusion of information on the liquidation of the legal entity or its exclusion;
  • documents provided in sale and purchase agreement confirming the fulfillment of obligations by the parties (including obligations on full payment of the agreement, on transfer of real estate property).
If the applicant does not provide the extract from the USRPR, the agency registrating property rights transfer requests for the extract from the registration service.
The new rules will allow to register the agreement on the basis of the buyer’s application. As it is stated in the explanatory note to the Draft Law, the registration agency would refuse the registration because the owner that had been liquidated or excluded from the USRPR did not provide the application for property right transfer.
Terms for registration of agreement for participation in shared construction are reduced.
If the Draft Law is adopted, the terms for registration of agreement for participation in shared construction will be the following:
  • five working days after the application is received by Rosreestr (instead of currently stipulated seven working days);
  • three working days following the date of receival of documents by Rosreestr if the documents are filed electronically (instead of seven);
  • seven working days if the documents are filed to multifunctional center (currently – nine working days).
A list of documents that can be filed through the use of private account on Rosreestr website is provided.
Under the proposed version of the Federal Law “On registration of real estate” some of the applications can be filed electronically through the use of private account on Rosreestr website. Such documents include applications:
  • on cadastre in connection with changes in the main information on real estate object;
  • on cadastre and state registration of property right for individual residential construction, garden cottage;
  • on redistribution of land plots under the approved project of demarcation of territory;
  • on state cadastre and state registration of property right if two or more land plots are formed as a result of land division as well as formation of a land plot as a result of its merger with other land plots.
The above measure is likely to make the filing of application simpler since persons without electronic signatures will be able to file the documents electronically.
Communication between multifunctional center and Federal Cadastre Chamber is enhanced.
The Draft Law stipulates that a multifunctional staff member transforms the received application for cadastre and state registration of property rights and the attached documents in paper form into electronic form by scanning and then sends them to a registrar with paper copies. The registrar can start examining electronic documents before receiving paper ones. After that, the registrar сompares paper documents with electronic ones and certifies electronic documents with his enhanced electronic signature.
A list of persons who can apply for cadastre and state registration of property rights is expanded.
If the Draft Law is adopted, the successor who accepted succession can apply for termination of cadastre of non-existent real estate objects registered in the USRPR without registering the property right for such non-existing objects.
All the above amendments are to improve the procedure for registration of property rights for applicants (new opportunities for filing applications electronically, shorter terms for registration of agreements for participation in shared construction) and for registrars (specification of powers of cadastre chamber in legislation, enhancement of interaction between agencies). Many of the proposals reflect current trends of provision of public services such as digitalization of public services. For instance, the amount of electronic cooperation between governmental bodies is increased and filing electronic documents becomes easier. Another trend is simplification of procedures related to registration of property rights for real estate. Certain unnecessary elements such as registration of property right for non-existing real estate object are eliminated. The proposals, from our point of view, should be welcomed, since they were compiled with regard to the practice of registration of property rights to real estate.
Currently the Draft Law has been introduced to the State Duma and the State Duma Committee on nation building and legislation has been appointed as the responsible committee. It is expected that the Draft Law will be considered during summer session (July) of 2020.

Ksenia Stepanischeva
Counsel

Ekaterina Pochtareva
Junior Associate

[1] Executive Order of Rosreestr № П/0515 dated October 18, 2016 “On conferring certain powers of registration agency to the Federal state budgetary agency Cadastre Chamber of the Federal Service for State Registration, Cadastre and Cartography”
Ksenia Stepanischeva 2020 Analytics