- 24.4.2017
- 53870
Almost every second plot of land put up for sale in the Sverdlovsk region has problems from the point of view of the law: a dark past, incorrectly executed documents, lack of officially drawn boundaries. The vast majority of problems can be caught during the legal analysis of the planned transaction. At the same time, the analysis should affect not only papers.
The transaction of buying and selling a plot of land is very different from a transaction with residential real estate. There are many more nuances with land, especially with regard to the non-paper part of the transaction. Before concluding an agreement to purchase a plot of land, you should get answers to at least four questions: is everything clear with the ownership rights to the plot, is it possible to build full-fledged housing on it, are its boundaries officially fixed and how realistic is it to reach your new possessions with the benefits of civilization - road, electricity, water, etc.
Lawyers and realtors specializing in this type of real estate actively use the methods of detectives and investigators - they collect documents and testimony from various sources and carefully compare the data, trying to find discrepancies. The buyer of the plot can also successfully apply this method.
Mystery 1. Unravel the dark past
The basis of the “dossier” for a land plot should be three papers: a title document, regular and “extended” extracts from the Unified State Register of Real Estate Registration (USRN).
The title document for land can be: a resolution on the allocation of land, a purchase and sale agreement, a certificate of inheritance, a court decision, etc. Note that the papers are listed in order “from simple to complex.” If the current owner (who is also the seller) did not buy the plot, did not inherit it or sue it, but received it from the administration (and his name is in the resolution on the allocation of land), this can be considered the best option. After all, the less an object changes hands, the lower the risk that controversial or outright illegal transactions will be discovered in its past that could ruin the life of the owner of the plot in the future.
If the seller presents a purchase and sale agreement as a title document (that is, he himself once purchased the plot for money), then the potential buyer should investigate the legal past of the property. To do this, the easiest way is to use the “extract from the Unified State Register of Real Estate on the transfer of rights to real estate” (not to be confused with a regular extract). Sometimes this paper is unofficially called an “extended extract from the Unified State Register of Real Estate”. It can be ordered on the Rosreestr website or at the Multifunctional Center for the Provision of State and Municipal Services (MFC). Attention! An extended statement can be obtained either by the current owner of the property or by a person who has a power of attorney from him. Registration of an extended statement in paper form will cost 400 rubles, in electronic form – 250 rubles. The processing time is three working days. You can order an extended extract on the Rosreestr website if the owner has an electronic signature.
It is important for us that the extended extract contains the full names of the owners of the plot in chronological order (starting from 1998), the type of right of each owner (ownership, shared ownership), and most importantly, the registration dates of each transaction.
Lyudmila Plotnikova
lawyer of the Ural Chamber of Real Estate
You should pay close attention to the terms of ownership of the site. The buyer should be especially wary if the current and previous owners of the property owned it for a very short time. There is a danger that a series of lightning-fast transactions is covering up tracks after a risky operation. In turn, if the seller has owned the land for many years, this reduces the risk of “greetings” from the past appearing.
An extended extract will also be useful when checking a plot that previously passed from one owner to another through inheritance or by court decision. However, for these cases, an even more important piece of paper will be a “regular” extract from the Unified State Register of Real Estate (it states whether the plot is pledged, under trial or under arrest). Like an extended statement, it can be obtained from Rosreestr or the MFC in paper form for 750 rubles, in electronic form - for 300 rubles. The paper is issued to any citizen.
When studying the extract, a potential buyer should carefully study the sections containing information about restrictions - encumbrances (seizures) of the right, as well as claims made in court. It may also contain information about challenging inheritance rights. Of course, the presence of such legal “add-on weights” greatly increases the risks of the site owner.
It should be remembered that starting from January 1, 2021, a “simple” extract from the Unified State Register of Real Estate is a document confirming the title to the property. All other papers (certificate of registration of rights, deeds of ownership, etc.) no longer have legal force. You can obtain an extract only for plots that have been registered in the cadastral register (i.e. included in the Unified State Register of Real Estate) and for which ownership has been registered.
Kira Zudikhina
Country real estate expert
There are still plots that are not registered with the cadastral register, but this is very rare. More often it happens that the owner has in his hands a document on land ownership, issued before 2000, and does not know whether his plot is registered with the cadastral register or not. To find out, you need to order an extract from the Unified State Register of Real Estate. Even in a situation where ownership is not registered, in most cases the plot is registered in the cadastral register as previously registered, which is reflected in the extract. If there is no information in the Unified State Register of Real Estate, then before selling the land plot, it must be registered in the cadastral register.
Earlier, the portal METRTV.ru talked about how transactions with land plots are processed after Law 218-FZ comes into force on January 1, 2021. This law, in particular, will not allow registering the purchase/sale of a plot that is not included in the Unified State Register of Real Estate. Although previously a situation could have arisen when a person who bought a plot, after the transaction was completed, put the documents on the land in order.
Tax service
All owned real estate is subject to land tax, so it is quite possible to contact the Federal Tax Service to obtain information. All information about the owner is transferred to the tax authorities within ten days from the moment the land is registered in the cadastral register to monitor stable tax payments.
However, tax officials are not always willing to help and provide the information of interest, so the interested party will have to submit a petition with detailed arguments for the need to obtain information about the owner.
Mystery 2. How much land is there really?
The next step is to analyze the documents for the site. It is necessary to find out whether the information presented in different papers coincides and to understand exactly what data corresponds to the true parameters of the site.
Vladimir Voronov
country real estate expert at Link Academy of Sciences
It happens that the area of the plot indicated in the title document and in the extract from the Unified State Register does not coincide. Most likely, the data from the extract is closer to the truth. But they can also be trusted unconditionally only if land surveying has been carried out on the site and its data is entered into the Unified State Register of Real Estate. You can find out whether the site was demarcated from the extract from the Unified State Register of Real Estate. It contains section No. 1, the column “area”. If it says that the area is “specified” or, in addition to the number indicating the area, there is a plus/minus sign for some time, this means that land surveying has been carried out.
The expert also notes that the area of the site and whether land surveying was carried out can be found out using a public cadastral map on the Rosreestr website. On the map itself, at the top left there is a “search engine” - a window with a magnifying glass in which you need to enter the cadastral number of the plot of interest to you. It (the site) will be displayed on the screen, in addition, a window will open in which there is a block of information about the object, including the category of land, permitted use and dimensions. The indication of the area may indicate “Specified area”, this means that land surveying has been carried out. If “Declared area” is indicated, then land surveying still needs to be done.
Kira Zudikhina
Country real estate expert
Until March 2021, the law allows transactions without land surveying, but in practice buyers require that boundaries be established before concluding a purchase and sale agreement. This is most often due to the reluctance of new owners to enter into disputes with neighbors regarding the boundaries of the acquired land plots.
The risk of “running into” an undemarcated area is quite high. According to the Rosreestr Office for the Sverdlovsk Region, as of April 1, 2021, only 51.5% of the total plots registered in the cadastral register in the Sverdlovsk Region were surveyed. That is, in the region, about half a million more land plots remain undemarcated. The cost of calling a cadastral engineer to carry out land surveying, depending on the location and area of the site, is usually in the range of 8 - 12 thousand rubles.
Local administration
There is no land without an owner; absolutely any real estate is owned by someone.
If the land is not leased or from a private owner, then it is under the jurisdiction of the municipality, which is obliged to provide the requested information. The district administration must store all documentation about registered land plots, owners and documents confirming the form of ownership. The land surveying process is also the responsibility of the municipality.
A plot of land can be burdened with an easement, even one that is privately owned. When inheriting land plots, it is necessary to take into account some features. We talked about them in detail in this article. Donating land to a relative is one of the simplest transactions in legal terms. Read more here.
Secret 3. Is it possible to live here?
Another section of the Unified State Register that you need to pay close attention to is an indication of the category and permitted use of the land on which the site is located. It is possible to build a full-fledged residential building or cottage only on a plot of land classified as “land of settlements” with the permitted use of “individual housing construction” (IHC) or “personal subsidiary plot” (LPH). A garden house is being built on agricultural land with permitted use - “dacha construction”.
According to the decision of the Constitutional Court dated June 30, 2011 N 13-P, you can obtain permanent registration in a country house. In addition, there is currently a bill in the State Duma (passed in the first reading) that also provides for the possibility of registering citizens in garden houses.
If the subject of the transaction is a plot with existing buildings, the buyer should make sure that the capital structures are registered in the State Register, have technical passports, as well as a documented connection of utility networks. If gas/electricity has not yet been supplied to the house, you should make sure that the wiring of communications has been agreed upon with the energy sales and gas supply organization. It is quite risky to acquire land without agreed conditions for supplying utility networks. In the practice of Ekaterinburg realtors, there was a case when laying a gas pipeline to three new cottages cost an amount exceeding the cost of the houses themselves and the land plots on which they are located.
If a plot with unfinished construction is purchased, then the buyer needs to make sure that the seller has design and permitting documentation for construction and technical information from the BTI that this is an object with unfinished construction. Previously, the portal METRTV.ru talked about the intricacies of registering ownership of a house on individual housing construction lands.
Maxim Fedotov
Director of the Academy of Sciences "Titul"
Pay attention to the status of the land, and in the title document - to special conditions. For example, it may stipulate that the calculation has not been completed in full or that certain conditions for the creation of utility networks may be specified. I recommend everyone to look at regional planning documents and find their site in the general plan. For example, you can get a plot on which it is planned to build a power line, gas pipeline or public buildings.”
What turns out after the check?
Before purchasing the selected object from the direct owner, it is checked at the specified address. The lucrative market offers available in large numbers are of interest to many potential applicants.
In this case, it is recommended to consider several proposals at once, analyze and compare the provided data, as well as derive the average price. If the price is underestimated, caution is required, therefore, when purchasing a land plot, the transparency of the stated conditions is checked.
Due diligence results in significant risk reduction and helps in acquiring the property without any untoward incidents in the near future.
What is revealed during the procedure:
- compliance with the layout of the site with documentation;
- the presence of a seizure of the object or its use as collateral;
- presence of inconsistencies in cadastral documentation
.
Verification becomes the key to the absence of any pitfalls in the transaction. It confirms that the object belongs to the owner and protects against a fraudster who can act on his behalf in his own interests.
Secret 4. Won’t they take my land?
Before transacting with a plot, you should study such an aspect as the mental health of the seller of the plot. Typically, realtors advise asking the owner of the property for a certificate stating that he is not registered with a drug and mental health dispensary. Theoretically, this should insure the buyer against recognition of the transaction as invalid in the future due to the deviation of the seller’s psyche. In fact, this precaution does not always work.
Lyudmila Plotnikova
lawyer of the Ural Chamber of Real Estate
In my practice, there was a case when the court invalidated a transaction carried out four years earlier. When registering it, a certificate was received from the mental health clinic stating that the seller was not registered. However, three years later he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. Representatives of the former owner proved in court that at the time of the sale the person was already sick...
Realtors notice that not all property owners agree to collect medical certificates at the request of potential buyers. Often they simply advise looking for another seller with a different property. In such a situation, the buyer can ask the seller to show his driver's license. This document is not issued to mentally ill and drug addicted people.
Who needs a site inspection?
Many people are interested in the question of who needs to check the site before purchasing - a legal entity or an individual? Basically, an entrepreneur is engaged in investing money in the acquisition of land for the planned conduct of any activity. Before an upcoming transaction, an inspection of the property is carried out to determine the chances of implementing the planned plans and activities.
An individual most often acquires a plot of land for farming, constructing a residential property or country house, or planting a garden or vegetable garden.
