We need to turn this country into a flower bed rather than a dump...

A statement made lately by Deputy Minister of Regional Development, Construction and Housing and Communal Services Maksym Malashkin may well initiate a serious conversation with chief architects of our cities, landscape designers, environmentalists, and concerned residents... We mean his appeal to MPs sitting on the relevant committee, whom he asked to clarify the legislation which regulates the access of residents of apartment buildings to their curtilages. Maybe it would give Ukrainian cities a chance to become places where every entrance has a flower bed nearby rather than a dump full of beer cans and cigarette butts. After all, it was not for nothing that people formerly identified a Siberian house as a Ukrainian dwelling (our compatriots settled in that faraway country having served their time as political prisoners) by its courtyard: each of them had a garden, a kitchen-garden, and… a flower bed.

“It is another subspecies of the national idea – to transform this country into a flower bed! Rather than a dump... It is very much affordable and suitable for our mentality, is not it?” The Day’s editor-in-chief posted on Facebook.

A number of laws and regulations need to be changed to allow curtilage plots to be transferred to residential condominiums’ ownership. Deputy Minister of Regional Development, Construction and Housing and Communal Services of Ukraine Malashkin made this statement during a working meeting in the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Construction, Urban Development and Housing and Communal Services, held to discuss the bill No.3576 “On Amending Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine Dealing with Apartment Building Curtilages.”

“Analysis of the current legislation has shown that plots occupied by apartment buildings may be transferred free of charge to the ownership or permanent use of condominium members only after a thorough revision of land legislation. In particular, we need to amend the Land Code of Ukraine, the Civil Code of Ukraine, the Laws of Ukraine ‘On the State Land Cadastre, and ‘On State Registration of Rights to Real Estate and Their Encumbrances,’” Malashkin noted.

He reminded the MPs that such transfers are provided for by the Law of Ukraine “On Peculiarities of Exercising the Right to Property in Apartment Buildings.”

His ministry supports the bill being discussed in the relevant committee. “This document aims to create conditions for legislative regulation of the transfer of ownership of curtilages to owners of apartments and non-residential properties in apartment buildings,” the deputy minister noted.

According to him, Ukraine already nominally has a mechanism that provides for the acquisition of real rights by individuals and legal entities. However, any attempt to use this mechanism runs into difficulties. In particular, according to the current legislation, acquiring rights to curtilages, their state registration, and state registration of rights to them all require consent and personal declarations from 100 percent of the condominium’s owners.

“However, it is difficult to implement, as we see from real-life cases. For example, there are cases when during registration of property rights, a co-owner of a condominium sells or leases out their apartment, leaves the location and cannot be found. The draft law ‘On Amending Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine Dealing with Apartment Building Curtilages’ minimizes all necessary procedures without breaking down the existing land legislation system,” Malashkin believes.