Seizure of part of a land plot by a neighbor. How to proceed?

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Published: 11/16/2017

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The current legislation prohibits the use of land in an illegal manner, since in the event of squatting of the territory and its improper exploitation, significant material damage may be caused to the legal owner of the site.

Unauthorized seizure is an administrative offense that involves bringing the offender to established liability.

Reasons for illegal seizure of land
Actions of the owner when a neighbor seizes part of the land When the boundaries are established
When boundaries are not defined

Peaceful settlement of the dispute

Application to the administration

Application to the Land Committee

Going to court

Reasons for illegal seizure of land

In practice, there are often cases of citizens and organizations using neighboring lands for personal purposes. Housekeeping and construction of buildings on someone else's territory is illegal and punishable.

Unauthorized seizure of someone else's land can be carried out in different ways, due to certain circumstances that served as
the reason for the violation:

exploitation of someone else's property due to a long absence of the owner or due to improper installation of the fence;
discrepancy with cadastral documentation, due to which the owner of an adjacent plot violates the boundaries;
error in cadastral documents;
The boundaries of the land plot have not been established.

Situation: a neighbor put up a fence, the authorities do nothing

State inspectors do not always carefully check the removal of fences. And in the case of a complex and broken boundary of plots, they can leave the situation unchanged, notifying about the absence of violations. In this case, lawyers advise hiring a cadastral engineer who will point out the discrepancies between the cadastral boundary and the actually installed fence.

The received report can be sent as an attachment to the complaint to the prosecutor's office. You will have to complain about the state inspectors. If the outcome of the complaint is positive, the money for the cadastral engineer will not be returned, but the border will most likely be returned to its proper place.

Actions of the owner when a neighbor seizes part of the land

To resolve the issue of unauthorized seizure of part of the land by the owner of a neighboring plot, there are several ways:

pre-trial order. To do this, you should contact your neighbor and discuss the problem. Sometimes it happens that the violator simply does not know that he has occupied someone else’s territory. Therefore, it is often enough to compare the existing documentation for real estate;
if a neighbor refuses to release illegally used land, you should contact the local administration;
if these actions do not influence the offender, you can submit an application for unauthorized occupation of land to the Land Committee;
If the above actions are ineffective, it is necessary to go to court.

The sequence of appropriate measures to resolve the conflict depends on whether the boundaries of the land ownership, part of which the neighbor has seized, are defined.

When boundaries are set

If land surveying was carried out in relation to a plot of land, part of which was occupied by a neighbor without permission, the sequence of actions will be as follows:

comparison of the boundaries indicated in the cadastral passport for the site and in the boundary plan;
establishing actually established boundaries with those reflected in the documentation. If it becomes clear that a violation has occurred on the part of a neighbor, you should contact him and report it;
If the violator does not agree to vacate someone else’s territory, it is necessary to file a claim in court. To do this, you will need a documentation package consisting of:

Title documents for the site. These can be contracts, certificates of inheritance, acts of state and municipal authorities, court decisions, etc.
Cadastral passport for the property.
Boundary plan of the territory.

When boundaries are not defined

If cadastral work has not been carried out in relation to the disputed area, the procedure is as follows:

carrying out the land surveying procedure. Boundary work is carried out by a cadastral engineer and ends with the preparation of an act of approval of land boundaries, which is signed by all interested parties (owners of adjacent plots);
If a neighbor does not agree with the established boundaries, a claim should be filed with a judicial authority.

A neighbor has seized part of a public plot of land

For example, consider a situation where the plot is adjacent to a house that belongs to two families under the right of common shared ownership. One of the families has two personal vehicles, the second does not have a car. Cars are parked in a common area.

The second family can file a complaint regarding squatting if the first family occupy more than half of the total plot with parking.

If disputes arise with neighbors, seek advice from a lawyer. A specialist will be able to recommend the most appropriate course of action after a legal analysis of your situation. Write your question in the special field on our website.

In any case, when it is not possible to solve the problem peacefully “neighborly”, you will have to turn to the courts. Without a legal education, it is often difficult to competently draw up a claim and collect evidence. A professional can also help with this.

Application to the administration

After filing a complaint about the unauthorized occupation of part of the land plot, with the attachment of documents confirming the appeal to the neighbor and an attempt to negotiate peacefully, authorized employees review the submitted papers and make an appropriate decision.

Application to the Land Committee

Upon filing an application for violation of the rights of the owner of a land plot by a neighbor, an inspection is carried out by the competent authorities. The application must be accompanied by title documentation for the plot and a cadastral passport.

If a neighbor refuses to vacate the illegally used property, papers documenting attempts to resolve the issue by mutual consent can be used as evidence in a lawsuit.

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Arbitrage practice

In judicial practice, there are quite a lot of cases related to defending the rights of citizens whose land was unauthorizedly used by neighbors living nearby. For clarity, we can consider one real case.

Thus, in 2021, the Krasnoflotsky District Court of Khabarovsk received a statement of claim from citizen Ermolenko D.P. against citizen Dmitrieva S.A., who unauthorizedly dug up the boundary between two plots and took possession of part of the plaintiff’s land.

As a result of the consideration of the case, the court made a decision to partially satisfy the claims, and also decided to recover from the defendant the costs incurred by the plaintiff in connection with the payment of the state duty (Decision No. 2-1148/2021 M-951/2021 dated July 11, 2021 in case No. 2-1148/2021).

Dispute resolution through court

If your neighbors refuse to reconcile and claim that your documents contain an error, you can go to court. Do not forget to carry out the procedure for pre-trial settlement of the issue.

Cases related to the resolution of land disputes are considered by the district judicial body. Territorial purpose matters. The claim is filed at the location of the disputed land plot.

The application must be made in writing. There is no single set form. However, territorial divisions of courts have the right to develop their own forms.

Any claim includes the following information:

name of the judicial authority where the claim is filed;
last name, first name, patronymic of the plaintiff, place of registration, residence, contact telephone number;
last name, first name, patronymic or name of the defendant, his place of registration, residence, as well as contact telephone number;
the main part of the document, which includes an explanation of the violation of law;
listing of violations;
description of ownership when it arose;
general technical characteristics of the land plot;
reasons for violation of property rights;
references to regulatory legislation;
assumptions about how the conflict can be resolved;
requirements to the court;
list of documents attached to the claim;
date of preparation of the document and signature of the plaintiff.

The completed claim form can be downloaded from the official website of the judicial authority. Please note that this is provided as a sample. If you did not write an application according to this form, but reflected the necessary information in it, then nothing needs to be corrected.

Article 301 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation gives the right to demand the return of a land plot to the owner. And Article 304 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation states that all obstacles to operation must be eliminated.

The court has the right to consider the statement of claim within two months from the date of its registration. After this, a place and date for the meeting are set, of which the parties are notified in writing. Most often, a summons is sent.

At trial, all parties have the right to defend themselves and present evidence in the case. Each of the participants may not testify against himself, but cannot refuse to testify.

ATTENTION! Look at the completed sample claim to court for violation of the boundaries of a land plot:

How can a lawyer help?

Let's look at 4 situations and decide what kind of legal assistance you may need.

Dispute about imposing boundaries. It arises if one plot was previously registered, for example, under the “dacha amnesty”, and land surveying was carried out on the other. In this case, the lawyer must find documentary evidence of the boundaries of the plot or confirm that the fence that has been on the plot for 15 years is the very line dividing the property. It would be useful to conduct peaceful negotiations and clarify the circumstances of establishing the boundaries of the site. For example, earlier in this place there was a tree, a bridge, a pillar, according to which the edge of the earth was determined.
Dispute about squatting. There is an unauthorized occupation of the land plot by neighbors who moved the border of their land and “went in” to the neighbor, thereby reducing the area of his allotment. In this case, the lawyer must prove that:

that the seizure was indeed unauthorized;
determine the old boundaries of the allotment (either by documents or by identification marks);
find witnesses or conduct a notary inspection of the site to establish boundaries;
identify persons who are responsible for trespassing.

Dispute with the registration authority about entering information about land into the state real estate cadastre. In this matter, the main thing is to be prompt, since you can challenge the cadastral engineer’s conclusion within 3 months from the date he signed the document. You need to prove 2 things:

the boundaries from the boundary plan correspond to the title documents;
denial of cadastral registration is illegal.

Conducting land management examination. This procedure is the main one when establishing the boundaries of land plots. A lawyer will help you correctly formulate the questions posed to the expert, on which the decision of the court case will depend.

The main thing a lawyer can help with is to draw up a sample statement of claim for trespass.

Owner's rights

If it is not possible to come to an agreement peacefully with the neighbor who has seized the land, then you must follow the law. In Russia, land relations are regulated on the basis of several legal acts.

These include:

Article 301 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation states that the owner claims to return his land plot. Anyone who uses someone else's land is subject to administrative liability;
on the basis of Article 304 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, the owner of a land plot has the right to demand the elimination of all violations found on his land, even if the right of ownership has not been violated. For example, if someone interferes with a citizen’s use of his property, he has the right to file a negatory claim. Please note that a negatory claim is a claim directed to third parties to eliminate obstacles to the implementation of property rights;
Article 208 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation states that there is no statute of limitations for resolving issues related to the implementation of land rights. Thus, the owner of the site can go to court regardless of how much time has passed since the violation was committed.

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You have the right to go to court not only in case of violation of the inviolability of property rights, but also if a neighbor violates the requirements of SNiP 30-102-99. For example, if a neighbor built a bathhouse next to your fence. This figure must be at least three meters. In reverse order, the conditions do not lose their relevance.

Never start resolving a conflict with a court or other higher authority. Often the violator agrees to correct the deficiencies voluntarily. It is quite possible that the person did not know about the location of the boundaries of his property.

But if the neighbors do not want to agree to reconciliation, you can go to court. Please note that before involving a judicial authority, it is necessary to carry out a mandatory pre-trial conflict resolution procedure.

Examples of boundary violations from life

Disputes about the boundaries of land plots are currently one of the most common categories in district courts. Owners of plots located in the neighborhood often cannot agree on the location of the fence that divides their property, or it is a question of violating the boundaries of part of the plot when installing a fence or building a balcony.

There are several reasons for this:

mistakes made by the cadastral engineer when carrying out land surveying work;
unauthorized seizure of part of the territory by a neighbor;
contradictions in old documentation or inclusion of irrelevant information.