True Land Prices Expected

The Derzhkomzem Land State Committee of Ukraine admits that the situation with the application of the laws on the land is far from normal, as more than 149,000 transgressions have been registered over the past two years, especially in terms of squatting in urban areas.

Derzhkomzem Chairman Anatoly Danylenko held a press conference last Thursday and identified the areas in which this dangerous trend has become particularly conspicuous: the Autonomous Republic of the Crimea (the coastal zone), Odesa and Kyiv oblasts. Squatting has caused a large number of complaints filed with courts of law and prosecutor’s offices. Mr. Danylenko stressed that his committee would want to see a “more definite response” from the courts. The Derzhkomzem, for its part, will launch training courses in October, enrolling thousands of specialists that will subsequently carry out inspections.

A uniform Land Register must be drawn up in Ukraine before January 1, 2005, listing land and real estate titles based on the state registers of land and of real estate. After the uniform state register is enacted, all plots, movables, and titles will be registered only with the Derzhkomzem’s Center of the State Cadastre. Work on the new system is in progress. The Derzhkomzem plans to open before October 1 registration centers all over Kyiv oblast, based on the state land cadastre, relying a single-window principle, and make the new system available throughout Ukraine, December 1. Mr. Danylenko informed that the first such center had started functioning in Boyarka, a town in Kyiv oblast, and that WB experts see it as conforming to all international standards.

The Derzhkomzem Chairman is opposed to the VR resolution prolonging the moratorium on sales of plots (the bill was vetoed by the President of Ukraine). He told the press conference that prolonging the moratorium on sales of farmlands had to be avoided by all means: “Selling land is not the point; it’s the implementation of the right of legal entities and individuals to work the land and enjoy long-term loans, attracting investments and expanding reproduction.” At present, farmlands are in economic circulation; they are being cultivated; land rent and tax are being paid, yet Mr. Danylenko believes that this important resource is not being utilized in full measure. He does not share many agrarian MPs’ fears that all land will be sold out on the shadow market once the moratorium is lifted. On the contrary, moratorium serves to form a shadow land market. There are only normative land prices, so that real prices could be produced only by an actual land market. If and when created, it will not allow anyone to buy plots for token money, Anatoly Danylenko feels sure.