What documents are needed when purchasing a plot of land?

Real estate transactions always involve many risks that the buyer should be aware of before encountering them in order to minimize the likelihood of this encounter.

The first thing you might encounter is an unscrupulous seller. Yes, the deal made with him may be absolutely legal, but in the end you will not get what you expected. For example, the current owner of the land may deliberately hide any details from you or convince you of something that does not actually exist. A typical example is the sale of a plot of land that is positioned as suitable for construction, although the real target category of the property is completely different. At the same time, there may even be supposedly residential buildings on the territory, which officially cannot have such a status until the land is transferred. Moreover, real estate may be seized without permission or have a number of encumbrances, such as arrest, prohibitions on certain types of use, easement.

The next no less significant risk is scammers. Despite the fact that the state is tightening control over transactions in every possible way and introducing new rules for registering the transfer of property rights, criminal acts are still committed, and not infrequently. If you do not carefully check the documents presented by the seller for the purchase of a land plot in ownership, it may end up that the property was sold to several persons at once or, even worse, it was not sold by the owner using forged papers.

Even if you are faced with a person who does not intend to deceive you, there is still a risk of incorrect execution of the transaction, in particular if the documents contain inconsistent, outdated information or any nuance is missed that will lead to the annulment of the contract in the future (lack of consent of the spouse , board of trustees, etc.).

Dear readers!

Our articles talk about typical ways to resolve legal issues, but each case is unique. If you want to find out how to solve your specific problem, please contact the online consultant form on the right →

It's fast and free!

Or call us by phone (24/7):

If you want to find out how to solve your particular problem, call us by phone. It's fast and free!

+7 Moscow,

Moscow region

+7 Saint Petersburg,

Leningrad region

+7 Regions
(the call is free for all regions of Russia)
This is why it is so important to know the features of checking the legal purity of a purchase, having thoroughly prepared, or immediately trust a professional.

What documents are required when purchasing a plot of land?

Today you can purchase a property from a private owner, an organization, the state, or a municipality under auction conditions by submitting a preliminary application for participation. Accordingly, the types of real estate differ, as well as the list of documents required to purchase the land plot you have chosen.

The procedure for concluding a transaction after selecting an object is standard:

The seller presents the land papers to the potential buyer;
The potential buyer checks whether everything is in stock, whether it is reliable, and whether the recorded information corresponds to the real picture and the words of the seller;
A preliminary agreement, an agreement on a deposit, etc., is concluded at the discretion of the parties;
The main agreement is signed;
Payment is made (can be at any stage, in each case - individually);
Re-registration of property rights is carried out in Rosreestr (after payment of the state fee).

It is important to treat the financial issue - the transfer of money - with special care, keeping all receipts and ensuring legal security if something goes wrong.

From the owner

To purchase the selected land plot from its direct private owner, all documents that the seller must provide must be verified. Purchasing a plot of land from the owner involves the following package of papers:

Personal passport of the owner or all owners, if we are talking about co-ownership;
Documents confirming that the seller has legal rights to the property (extract from the Unified State Register of Real Estate);
Independent expert opinion on the estimated value of the property;
Notarized consent of the seller’s spouse, if the property is considered jointly owned (easy to check by checking the dates of the title document and the marriage certificate);
An extract from the Unified State Register confirming that the plot is not encumbered;
A plan of the territory, including a boundary plan, is very desirable so that there are no problems with neighbors.

This list of documents for the purchase of a land plot can be supplemented depending on the individual circumstances and characteristics of the object (the seller is a minor, the presence of buildings on the territory, a change in category, etc.).

individual housing construction

Particularly pressing is the question of what documents are needed for a land plot for individual housing construction so that its purchase is completed successfully and without subsequent pitfalls and other surprises. In this case, the seller must have:

Personal passport with current validity period;
Title papers;
Papers indicating the target category of the object (as it should be written: for individual housing construction);
Documents on the basis of which the seller received property rights (previous purchase agreement, deed of gift, will, certificate of inheritance, agreement of exchange, rent, privatization, etc.);
Extract from the Unified State Register of Real Estate about the absence of encumbrances;
Technical passport of the territory.

When purchasing the desired plot of land, in this case, the most important thing is to confirm the fact that the object belongs to the category of individual housing construction. If the property originally had a different purpose, but was transferred, documents are needed that confirm this procedure. In any case, you cannot trust only the seller’s words, no matter how weighty his arguments may be.

Country cottage area

Purchasing a summer cottage plot does not require a special permit for construction, unless you need a house there to register your family.

List of documents for the purchase of such a land plot:

Land survey plan
Papers on the basis of which the seller has the right to dispose of the property (extract from the Unified State Register and on the basis of which the right of ownership was obtained).
Technical passport for the territory and the buildings located on it.
Boundary plan.
Notarized consent of the spouse to the transaction if the property was acquired during marriage.
An extract from the personal account stating that there are no debts for housing and communal services.
An extract from the Unified State Register of State Registers indicating the presence or absence of burdensome factors.
Seller's personal passport.
Certificate from the Bureau of Technical Inventory, if there are no permanent structures on the territory.

In the absence of any of the securities listed above, the transaction will be very risky or even difficult to complete. It is important to remember: no matter who acts as the seller, how much you trust this person, each document must be checked carefully, and even better, you must entrust the determination of legal purity to a specialist.

What is the procedure for buying from an owner?

If, in the process of acquiring land from the state, a potential buyer first had to submit an initial application, then, at his own expense, issue a cadastral passport for the plot, and only after that was it possible to conclude a purchase and sale agreement with him through an announcement and bidding, then when purchasing from owner, the procedure is somewhat simpler in terms of the number of stages and consists of the following steps:

Search for the most suitable option for a site that meets the requirements that the buyer puts forward for it (for example, in the case of choosing a site for individual housing construction - the passage of communications nearby for the purpose of their subsequent introduction to the site, as well as a developed infrastructure that allows you to use the maximum benefits of civilization available in this area ). You can find such a plot with the help of a realtor (in their database of land plots for sale, you can select the plot that best suits the buyer’s requirements) or by independently studying all available advertising resources that contain advertisements for the sale of a particular plot. However, when choosing a plot, you need to pay attention to the price (for example, a plot for individual housing construction cannot be cheap if all communications exist on it, and a capital building cannot be located on agricultural land).
A preliminary meeting with the owner of the plot to discuss the entire process of the transaction and its terms (for example, resolving the issue of the price of the plot for final indication in the text of the contract, discussing possible encumbrances on the plot, etc.).
Concluding a purchase and sale agreement and registering it with the Rosreestr authorities in order for it to enter into legal force. At the same stage, the contract is notarized if the law requires such an action (for example, one party to the contract is a legal entity).
Registration of a certificate of ownership of the acquired plot by the new owner.

Thus, the procedure for concluding a land purchase and sale agreement with the owner (regardless of what category the land belongs to) looks quite simple.

However, the main difficulty in it lies in the correct preparation of all the necessary documents that will help give the transaction a legal appearance and will not allow third parties to challenge it.

Registration of a deposit when purchasing a land plot

When purchasing the land plot you have chosen, among other required documents, quite often a deposit is transferred to the seller - before the purchase itself is completed. The payment of the deposit must be documented and, very preferably, in front of a notary, since the day is about money and the amount, as a rule, is not small. In this case, a deposit agreement is concluded, which serves as confirmation that the potential buyer’s intentions are serious.

This preliminary agreement also fixes the main points of the main one, in particular the entire value of the property, which cannot be changed afterwards, the date of the transaction, the payment procedure, the amount of the deposit, etc. Speaking about the amount of the deposit, the legislation does not establish any clear figure, this within the competence of the parties to the transaction itself. It often ranges from five to ten percent of the price of the property.

When the deposit agreement is signed, the potential buyer transfers the agreed amount to the seller. If possible, avoid transferring money in cash by conducting monetary transactions through a bank - this way you will have a receipt and additional confirmation that the money was transferred.

Under the terms of the agreement, the seller, in turn, usually stops searching for buyers by removing the ad, and the buyer, for his part, does not consider other options. If the transaction does not take place at the initiative of the seller, he will have to return double the amount of the deposit, but if the transaction fails at the initiative of the buyer, the deposit will not be returned to him. During the same period, the seller can prepare the missing documents for the land that you will need when purchasing it.

Reasons for suspending registration of a land plot

The following positions can be accepted as sufficient grounds:

availability of a court decision to seize the property;
private or public easement;
use of land in collateral or mortgage lending;
a concession agreement, which implies the conclusion of an agreement with the state on the paid transfer of land for a certain period for the intended use;
presence of outstanding tax debts.

The presence of unpaid taxes is also a reason to postpone the purchase of a plot.
To know how to buy a plot of land from the owner without problems, you must first accept the above list of restrictions that will negate all previously reached agreements between the buyer and the seller.

Rules for drawing up and a sample contract for the sale and purchase of a plot

The conditions for concluding an agreement for the purchase of real estate, including a land plot, are recorded in particular in the current Civil Code of the Russian Federation, Articles 554 and 555, as well as in the Land Code, in Article 37. It also displays the necessary documents, information from which should be transferred correctly.

The main agreement is always drawn up in writing. It is not necessary to resort to notarial assistance, but in case of disputes or to exclude the possibility of their occurrence, legal assistance will still be very useful.

The text of the agreement records the details of all parties (full passport data), a detailed description of the main characteristics of the transaction object (type, category, cadastral number, address, permitted use, area, boundaries, existing communications, presence of buildings, etc.), cost of land, information about making a deposit, payment date and other key conditions.

How to draw up a contract

There are currently a sufficient number of purchase and sale agreements, and for most of them there are universal samples that can be freely downloaded from the Internet.

However, for all texts of such agreements there is a list of sections regulated by civil law that must be included in the document.

These sections include:

Preamble (contains information about the date and place of conclusion of the agreement, as well as about the parties participating in the transaction, including indications of the documents on the basis of which they act);
Subject of the agreement (a specific plot is described, indicating its address and cadastral number, area and the most important physical characteristics);
Contract price (not only the specific value is indicated, but also the mechanism for its formation - from the cadastral value or by the market valuation method);
Payment procedure (is there an advance payment when paying for a purchase, how are mutual settlements carried out between the parties, to which accounts is the money transferred);
Rights and obligations of the parties (including the timely transfer of funds to the seller, as well as the cancellation of possible encumbrances if the buyer properly fulfills his obligations);
Force majeure circumstances (not only force majeure circumstances, but also possible options for their resolution, if this depends on the parties to the contract); Details of the parties (including indication of the addresses of the seller and buyer, passport details, bank accounts, etc.).

A sample contract for the sale and purchase of a land plot from the owner can be downloaded here.

In cases where, when agreeing on an agreement, the parties decided to make annexes to the agreement (in the form of a copy of the cadastral passport, cadastral plan or survey act), they are indicated separately and there must be references to them in the text of the agreement.

Letter of credit when purchasing real estate - find out everything about it! Full information about the tax when renting out an apartment in our article.

Are you looking for a profitable mortgage program for yourself? You will find an interesting option here.

Documents for the purchase of land provided for state registration

After the actual purchase of the land you want has taken place, the agreement is signed by all parties, legally you are not yet the owner until the documents are submitted to Rosreestr and the data is re-registered in the Unified State Register of Real Estate for the new owner. The procedure is quite

simple and does not take much time. All that is required of you is to come to the territorial office of Rosreestr or the Multifunctional Center together with the seller to write the appropriate application for the transfer of ownership rights and attach the following documents to it:

Personal passport;
Contract of sale;
Technical passport of the territory;
A receipt indicating that the state fee for the service has been paid.

What documents will you need to stock up on?

The list of documents that both parties will need to prepare when concluding a contract for the sale and purchase of a land plot looks quite impressive for each of the parties. At the same time, you will need to repeatedly contact government agencies for their production.

The seller will have to prepare the following documents:

Passport (or any other identification documents) in the original and a certified copy (in order to fully identify the seller and exclude the possibility of violating the law through forgery);
Certificate of ownership of the plot that will subsequently become the subject of the contract;
Documents confirming the legality of this certificate;
Cadastral documents for the plot, confirming the assignment of a cadastral number to it, as well as, if carried out, documents confirming the results of land surveying of a specific plot;
Certificates from the relevant authorities confirming the absence of debts (for example, tax) and possible encumbrances on a specific site;
Consent of the spouse (for individuals) to enter into a transaction (it will be required in any case, regardless of whether the land was acquired during an officially registered marriage or before it), since the sale of this resource can significantly affect the well-being of the family;
Consent of the guardianship and trusteeship authorities (if the interests of minor family members will be affected during the transaction);
Refusal of all other family members (if they have the right of priority stay) to conclude a transaction in a notarized form.

For the buyer, the list of documents is slightly smaller, but its preparation will also take quite a lot of time.

So, the buyer will have to prepare:

Any identification document (for the purpose of identifying the buyer) in the original and a certified copy;
Application for concluding a transaction (drawn up in two copies - one is transferred to the seller, and the other to Rosreestr);
Consent of all interested parties in the execution of the transaction (spouse, children over the age of fourteen) in the case of registration of the plot as shared ownership with the allocation of shares for each, even minor, participant in the transaction; Consent of the guardianship and trusteeship authorities (since a large amount of money is spent from the family budget, which can negatively affect the standard of living of minor family members);
Documents confirming the possibility of paying the entire purchase price to the seller (for example, a copy of the loan agreement issued by the bank to the buyer, indicating the loan amount);
In case of purchasing a plot with the help of maternity capital, it will be necessary to provide documents from the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation confirming the right to use such capital to pay for the purchased plot.

Thus, the buyer must also prepare a fairly significant list of documents, but they must carry a guarantee of the solvency of this party to the contract, since otherwise the transaction will not take place.

How parties can check documents

Since there are quite a lot of unscrupulous sellers, scammers and simply illiterate sellers, a potential buyer should know what to look for when checking documents and what specific papers regarding the acquired land need to be checked before making a purchase. You can entrust this task to a real estate agency, a specialized lawyer, or do it yourself, having prepared in advance.

If in the first two cases all responsibility is transferred to professionals, time and effort are saved, but services are paid, then in the third case, if something happens, there will be no one to blame for indiscretion but oneself.

In order for an independent check to be carried out correctly, it is not enough to simply visually inspect the papers presented by the seller. Copy down the basic information from them or ask for copies so that you can slowly check all the data for consistency, dates and other information. In parallel with this, it makes sense to contact Rosreestr yourself, requesting a certificate about who is the owner, whether there are any encumbrances, and about the main characteristics. The information received from Rosreestr must completely coincide with the data in the seller’s documents.

You can also use the public cadastral map to view the boundaries, but in general the changes are not always up to date.

How to check the history of a land plot

The documents received from the seller when purchasing a land plot do not always provide a complete picture, in particular regarding the history of the real estate. At the same time, such information can be extremely important to be sure that third parties will not appear in the near future, declaring their rights, late heirs and other troubles.

You can ask the seller to request an extended extract from the Unified State Register from Rosreestr, which only he can receive. This is the best option, and history can be seen transparently. To do this, order an extract on the transfer of rights using the widget below:

The extracts that you can independently request from Rosreestr provide only current information. That is, you can clarify whether the seller is really the only owner, whether he cheated regarding the category of land and its characteristics, but finding out who owned the plot and when is not available to you.