Procedure for purchasing an apartment owned by several persons

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Published: 12/05/2017

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It is not uncommon today for an apartment to be owned by several owners. For this reason, the procedure for purchasing a residential property owned by several owners has a number of its own characteristics, expressed, first of all, in the process of acquiring such housing.

When can an apartment have several owners?
Deal Features
Procedure for drawing up a contract
Contract of sale
Required documents

When can an apartment have several owners?

The emergence of a situation where a residential property may have several owners has various grounds, each of which is regulated by the norms of the current legislation:

acquisition by spouses of an apartment or house into joint ownership while in an officially registered marriage with the execution of the relevant documents;
purchase of an apartment by spouses in a registered marriage into joint ownership with the execution of documents in the name of one of the spouses, which will later be divided in equal shares during the divorce process, for which the relevant title documents are drawn up;
privatization for several owners of housing that was previously state or municipal property;
transfer by inheritance of one residential premises to several heirs, indicating their shares in specific property (in case of inheritance by law and will).

Deal Features

Transactions with real estate owned by several owners are characterized by the following features:

to purchase an apartment owned by several owners, the transaction must be carried out with all owners at the same time in order to avoid a situation where the apartment again falls into shared ownership;
to recognize a transaction as legal from a legal point of view, it will be necessary to prepare a notarized consent of all owners of a specific property to complete the transaction, otherwise registration of ownership of the new owner will be refused, and the transaction itself will be declared invalid;
persons who own shares in such an apartment have a pre-emptive right to purchase the entire living space;
the preparation of documents necessary for the transaction will be extensive, since it will be necessary to prepare documents for all participants in the transaction.

Dividing debts in a divorce is one of the most difficult issues in the entire divorce process. Concluding a prenuptial agreement will help to divide property after the divorce is finalized. Read more about this in our article.

Is it possible to get a divorce when the spouses have a child under 1 year old? Find out about it here.

How are the responsibilities of share owners divided?

The main responsibility of the co-owners of the apartment is payments for housing and communal services. Marina Katyanina from HEADS Consulting notes that owners can divide utility costs in proportion to the size of the share. “However, you should remember that separate receipts for payment do not make your space a communal apartment,” she warns. “You will have one personal account.”

True, now this issue can only be resolved in court. For each owner, a payment procedure for housing and communal services will be established in proportion to the shares in ownership.

If one of the owners does not pay for housing and communal services, the debtor owner will be the defendant in the debt collection case. “To avoid getting into a situation in which your electricity or water is turned off, it is better to pay the accumulated debt for another co-owner, and then go to court yourself with a claim to recover the expenses incurred from him,” advises Marina Katyanina.

Procedure for drawing up a contract

The procedure for purchasing an apartment that is jointly or sharedly owned by several co-owners will look like this:

conducting mutual consultations with all owners of the premises on the most preferable options for completing the transaction;
preparation of documents accompanying the process of signing a purchase and sale agreement, including notarization of those papers that are provided either in the form of copies or must be of such a nature to confirm the free expression of the will of each of the possibly interested participants in the transaction;
signing a purchase and sale agreement and an act of acceptance and transfer of real estate (the documents are signed between the buyer and each co-owner of the residential premises, and each copy of the sale and purchase agreement is signed by all parties to the transaction);
registration of the transfer of ownership from previous owners to the new owner by submitting the relevant documents to Rosreestr and receiving there an extract from the Unified State Register of Real Estate Rights.

Contract of sale

The purchase and sale agreement, signed by the participants in the transaction for the purchase of an apartment that is in joint or shared ownership, has a number of its own significant features due to the presence of several participants on the part of the seller. A downloadable sample is available here.

The content of such an agreement must include the following information:

date and place of conclusion of the agreement (indicate the date of specific signing of the text of the agreement by all parties to the transaction or by the last of them, if for some reason all owners cannot sign the text of the agreement on the same day, and it is not possible to use the services of a proxy);
information about the participants in the transaction (the data of all owners is indicated, regardless of whether they take part in signing the agreement independently or through proxies, since this information forms the basis for filling out information about the owners of the premises in the extract issued from the Unified State Register of Real Estate Rights);
if representatives by power of attorney participate in the transaction, the text of the agreement must indicate information about who such a representative is, on the basis of which document the representative acts (all details of the issued notarized power of attorney are recorded, indicating the validity period of the document, as well as the limits of the powers of such representative);
information about the apartment being purchased (its address, area, technical and quality condition);
the contract price and the procedure for mutual settlements (not only the total cost of the apartment is indicated, but also information about what the cost of one square meter is and what it consists of, and also if there is a deposit or advance payment, the mechanism for making full mutual settlements between the parties to the transaction is fixed);
the rights and obligations of the parties to the transaction, with provisions fixed for each participant, regardless of their number (if different co-owners have different rights and obligations);
force majeure circumstances and the procedure for the parties to the agreement in the event of the occurrence of such circumstances (including the procedure for terminating the contract if, due to the occurrence of such circumstances, the parties are unable to fulfill the terms of the contract);
signatures of the parties involved in the transaction (each copy of the agreement is signed by each participant in the agreement).

Disposal of property and judicial practice in “equity cases”

Legal advice

In accordance with the law, each shareholder can dispose of his part of the property with the full right of the owner. However, it is worth understanding that he is also burdened by certain terms of the agreement with other shareholders, or by a court decision.

Disposal and ownership are practically interchangeable concepts, therefore the owner must dispose of his share only in compliance with previously agreed conditions and without violating the rights of the other owners.

Considering that shared ownership is in fact common property, before carrying out any significant actions on it, it is important to consult with the other shared owners (Article 246 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation).

Judicial practice in so-called equity cases is widespread in Russia. When considering such situations, the judiciary uses all the legislative provisions presented above. At the end of the article, our resource will present you with a typical situation regarding a “share business”:

Divorced spouses Vasily Ivanov and Alla Baklashkina decided to divide their 3-room apartment (75 sq.m.) into shares. Since the only daughter of the former spouses, 13 years old, remained with her mother, citizen Baklashkina and her minor child were allocated most of the apartment (50 sq.m.), that is, 2/3 of the property. At the request of citizen Ivanov and citizen Baklashkina, the court determined the procedure for using the apartment, which all shareholders must adhere to.

In general, determining the procedure for allocating and using shares of an apartment between its owners is a rather complex undertaking, which often requires an appeal to a judicial authority. The resolution of all controversial issues in “share cases” is primarily carried out on the basis of Chapter 16 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, therefore, for an understanding of the general essence of shared ownership of property, refer to it.

You can learn more about shared ownership by watching the video:

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Discussion: 5 comments

Nina Nikolaevna says:
03/15/2019 at 21:33
Hello. I am the owner of 1/2 share in a 2-room apartment. Recently, the previous owner of 1/2 of the other share sold it to another owner. I, my husband and adult daughter, have been living for 3.5 years in a room of 18 sq.m., and the new owner, a man, has a room of 11 sq.m. He said that he wants to receive compensation for the missing meters of living space. How is such compensation calculated, in what amounts and within what time frame is it paid by me to the other owner. How can the issue of payment be resolved if I don’t work? What mandatory amount will I have to pay him? From a conversation with him, I learned that he is not officially married, but has two children from two different women. He can register both children without my consent, can he register the child’s mother in his living space without my consent, if the relationship is not formalized, but the child must live with the mother? What if it’s made official? Can I be forced to give him my room if more people are registered with him, although the second child from another woman will only be registered? What if the second family is only registered, but will not live? My phone number, if needed, is 889638810665. I’m really looking forward to your answer.
Answer
Galina says:
11/10/2020 at 00:15
In some situations, when relatives quarrel, it is better to sell the share. If you can’t sell it, then you can rent out the premises, but do you need to get permission from the other shareholders?
Answer
Zhanna says:
Read also: The Supreme Court clarified the nuances of the emergence of ownership of real estate due to acquisitive prescription
11/10/2020 at 12:55
You can rent out if you have a separate personal account, but also try to find tenants for such an apartment. Few people will agree to this, and the money will be ridiculous. In such a situation, it is better to negotiate humanly, but as for the payment of money, everything is complicated here, there are cases when relatives ask for millions for an insignificant share, realizing that the second shareholder cannot do anything.
Answer
Katya says:
11.11.2020 at 01:29
As far as I know, through the court it is possible to recognize a share as insignificant if it is really small in the apartment, and then it will be possible to voluntarily and compulsorily pay money for this share. Is this true or is it actually impossible?
Answer
Natasha says:
11/14/2020 at 00:13
It seems to me that a room in a dorm is better than a share in a communal apartment, but this is purely my opinion, which may be very erroneous and incorrect, studios now also cost a lot of money.
Answer