Many citizens are still surprised when, when purchasing an apartment, they receive, instead of a certificate of state registration of ownership rights printed on official letterhead with all the necessary security elements, a paper sheet with a seal and signature that is less attractive to the eye.
But many of those who know about the disappearance of the certificates still have questions: what kind of document replaced it, does it guarantee the same protection, is it necessary to change the certificate that was issued earlier, does the new document have any validity period, is there a fee for issuing it, and in general, why did the replacement take place?
This is not surprising, because real estate is not sold and bought every day, so even though years have passed since the changes, many still do not fully understand them. Let's refresh our memory and answer questions from those who haven't figured it out yet.
Get a tax deduction for an apartment or house
In order to return income tax from the budget after purchasing a home, you need to submit a declaration to the tax office and attach supporting documents. The main thing that needs to be confirmed is the acquisition of ownership of the apartment and the fact of payment for the purchase.
For this purpose, the mandatory set of documents until 2021 included a certificate of ownership of the property. From mid-2021, such certificates will no longer be issued. Now, to get money back from the budget, it is enough to provide an extract from the Unified State Register of Real Estate on the characteristics of the property and registered rights.
An extract from Rosreestr for the purchased apartment can be submitted to the tax office both in paper and electronic form.
Law online
No one will be left completely without documents. Instead of certificates, the right to ownership of a house, apartment or plot will be confirmed by an extract from the Unified State Register of Rights (USRE). Moreover, it can be obtained not only the old fashioned way, on paper, but also in electronic form.
The well-known saying that “without a piece of paper you are a bug, but with a piece of paper you are a person” seems to be beginning to lose its relevance. At least in real estate. In this case, an extract from the Unified State Register will, in fact, be a much more complete document than the previously issued certificate of ownership. After all, it indicates the most relevant, complete and up-to-date information about the property. For example, whether ownership of it is full or shared. And also whether there are any encumbrances or restrictions on the apartment, house, plot, etc.
If, for example, a mortgage is registered on a property (that is, the apartment is, as a result, pledged to the bank), then in the statement you will be able to find the number and date of registration of the agreement, the start date of payments and the repayment period of the loan, and the name of the bank. And, accordingly, it becomes clear that this apartment cannot be sold or other registration and legal actions must be taken without the permission of the bank until the collateral is paid and the mortgage is closed.
If there are encumbrances on the property, that is, for example, a seizure has been imposed, then the extract also informs about this.
The certificate of ownership of real estate will be issued electronically
Those who already have a certificate for real estate in the form of an apartment or land plot do not need to urgently re-issue it for an extract. The law establishes that state authorities, local authorities, courts and any other bodies and organizations responsible for this process are required to accept an extract from the Unified State Register of Real Estate, along with a certificate of state registration, to confirm the registration of rights to real estate.
In turn, those citizens who want to apply for it can do so online. To do this, you need to order it on the Rosreestr website, which has a special section “Obtaining information from the Unified State Register.” And receive, accordingly, in two versions - on paper, in the old fashioned way, or in electronic form, in the modern way.
In the 21st century, it should have long been expected that the registration of any actions, relationships and obligations that require state registration by law will be transferred to electronic format to facilitate work with documents, says Sergei Sternik, a professor at the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation.
“In this regard, such an initiative can only be welcomed; all this is very timely,” the expert is sure.
In his opinion, the ability to obtain statements online will result in increased efficiency and a cheaper process. “I think that it will be easier to combat corruption in this area, with delays in registration processes,” he suggests.
And finally, the expert summarizes, “in the general list of real estate data, not only current information is important, but also the history of changes, in this regard, the appearance of an extract from the unified state register of rights instead of a certificate is only beneficial to the process.”
Registration of inheritance
Entry into inheritance rights occurs with the participation of a notary, if the procedure proceeds without complications. In case of violation of the rights of any of the possible heirs, issues of division of inherited property may be considered in court. Both the notary and the court, in the course of preparing documents for making a decision and finding out the true picture of what is happening, can independently request information from Rosreestr.
The law does not require heirs to provide extracts from the Unified State Register of Real Estate, but in matters of inheritance it is important to have complete information before accepting the inheritance.
The fact is that not only the property or rights of the testator are inherited, but also his obligations. If a person enters into inheritance rights, then he not only becomes the owner of the deceased’s property, but also assumes all his outstanding obligations - primarily financial. And it happens that the amount of obligations is no less, and sometimes more, than the value of the inherited property. The most common situations of this kind:
- unpaid loans;
- compensation for damage after a car accident;
- debt to neighbors below after their apartment was flooded;
- obligation to support a person under an annuity contract.
The presence of such claims can be traced, even if the deceased did not say anything about them during his lifetime. For this purpose, an extract from the Unified State Register of Real Estate about the property is used, namely section 2 “Information on registered rights.” This section contains information:
- about all encumbrances on the apartment;
- about all persons in whose favor these encumbrances or restrictions are imposed;
- about agreements or court decisions on the basis of which the apartment is encumbered;
- about the validity period of encumbrances, etc.
Why are they no longer issuing certificates?
The issuance of certificates ceased on July 15, 2021, due to changes made to the legislation by Article 2 of Federal Law No. 360-FZ of July 3, 2021. That is already five years ago.
An extract from the Unified State Register of Companies began to be considered a legal document.
In transactions, the certificate and extract from the Unified State Register have equal weight. Most likely, the changes were made as part of the transfer of departments to work in electronic format, and the cessation of issuing certificates on forms was caused by the need to avoid discrepancies in determining the title document.
Now, after registering a transaction in Rosreestr, only a detailed extract about the property is issued, containing all the necessary information.
Apartment purchase
The real estate market is flooded with scammers - primarily because the average person makes real estate transactions extremely rarely and has poor knowledge of the current situation in this area. Many people, in the old-fashioned way, consider a title deed to be the most reliable document a seller can present to them. Meanwhile, this is far from the case.
A typical situation of deception is the sale of an apartment with an encumbrance. The seller establishes a trusting relationship with the future buyer, shows him a certificate of ownership, concedes the price and signs an agreement for the sale of the apartment. Then they go to submit documents for state registration and the buyer gives the seller money - after all, he is such a good person, and we are submitting documents for registration right now, everything is fine. Well, the documents can be accepted at the MFC.
However, it later turns out that the apartment is mortgaged or received under a rent agreement, is under an encumbrance and the consent of the bank or rent recipient for sale is required. Of course, there is no such agreement. After this, Rosreestr refuses state registration, all parties must remain to their own. The seller has an apartment, the buyer has money. But the seller cannot return the money right away, you have to wait. And this wait will drag on for years. In fact, the buyer lost his money.
You can eliminate such a sad situation at the very beginning - you need to order a current extract from the Unified State Register of Real Estate and carefully study all sections, especially information about registered rights.
What document currently confirms ownership of real estate?
In accordance with Federal Law-122, the certificate was abolished, and instead they began to issue an extract from the Unified State Register. This certificate is issued on a regular A4 sheet, but it is stamped by a government agency. At that time it was the seal of the Unified State Register of Law.
Federal Law-218 merged the Unified State Register of Real Estate and the State Real Estate Cadastre (State Real Estate Cadastre), resulting in the emergence of a new body - the Unified State Register of Real Estate. Thus, now the equivalent of the certificate is an extract from the Unified State Register of Real Estate. It is issued directly to each owner separately. If there are 4 owners, then each must order an extract for themselves.
There are several types of document:
- about the share of an individual owner with personal information about him, issued directly to the owner of the property;
- general information about the presence of encumbrances and the number of owners is available to any citizens.
It is important to understand that before the merger of the two government organizations there was a problem with the difference in information in the title documents.
This problem has now been resolved. Thus, owners can simultaneously register a transaction and carry out cadastral registration in one place.
It is mandatory to register:
- purchase of housing;
- home sales;
- transfer of ownership rights to other persons on the basis of a gift agreement or other agreements.
Thus, an extract from the Unified State Register today is the main evidence of the right to an object. If previously there were several types of certificate forms, now the sample is uniform throughout the country. This greatly simplifies the work of government agencies.
When making real estate transactions, it is recommended to cooperate with agencies. Experienced specialists work there who will independently order the necessary documents and check them for legal purity.
It is worth noting that an extract from the Unified State Register is valid, as a rule, for 10 days . Therefore, it must be ordered last.
But when working with a real estate agency, you have to pay twice to receive this paper.
The first time at the stage of checking the purity of the transaction, and the second time directly to register the transfer of ownership.
Bank loan
A typical situation with obtaining a loan secured by an apartment is a mortgage. However, it is necessary to confirm the ownership of real estate by the borrower or guarantor in other cases. For example, when submitting a loan application for a large amount without collateral for an apartment.
The reason lies in the peculiarities of the bank assessment of the future borrower, namely, his property status. The owner of his own apartment (or better yet, several) will be given money more readily, at a lower percentage and for a longer period than a person without property.
Which exact extract from the Unified State Register should be provided should be clarified with bank employees. Usually a standard statement is required indicating the characteristics of the property and existing encumbrances . To confirm property status, you may need an extract that contains information about all the borrower’s properties in the region or country.
Registration (registration)
The owner of the home provides a document confirming his ownership of the living space to the registration authority of the Ministry of Internal Affairs at his place of residence. The certificate of ownership remains valid, but in this case, employees will still request up-to-date information from the Unified State Register of Real Estate. Therefore, it makes sense to immediately order and provide an extract from Rosreestr with the package of documents for registration.
