"Real Estate and Investments. Legal Regulation", the journal

Issue 1 (2), 2000

Experience of State Registration of Rights on Real Estate and Transactions Related to It in Nizhniy Novgorod Region

Shatalin E.N., head of the State justice institution of Nizhniy Novgorod region for state registration of rights on real estate and transactions related to it

The system of state registration of the rights on real property and agreements with it on the territory of Nizhni Novgorod city and Nizhniy Novgorod area was created in several stages.

On January 20, 1995 the Nizhniy Novgorod area management passed the decree ¹17 "On creation of the state automated system of registration of rights on real estate and transactions with it on the territory of the Nizhniy Novgorod area". The temporal regulation on state registration of the rights on real property and agreements with it on the territory of the Nizhniy Novgorod area was worked out and brought into action since March 1, 1995 and the rules of keeping of the land Records were also worked out by this act.

On January 30, 1995 the Nizhni Novgorod city management adopted the decree ¹ 3 "On Order of Registration and Technical Inventory Control ", according to which the reorganization of urban and district Bureaus of technical inventory control was effected by the means of creation of Committee on Control of City Property of city of Nizhni Novgorod on their base since February 1, 1995 (ORTIC CCCP).

At the following stage on July 11, 1995 the Nizhni Novgorod city management adopted the decree ¹ 36 " On executing the decree of the Nizhniy Novgorod area management of 20.01.95 ¹ 17 " by which following documents were adopted and came into action since July 20, 1995: the Temporal regulation on state registration of rights on real estate and transactions with it on the territory of Nizhni Novgorod during the time before the adoption of the Federal Law (FL) " On state registration of the rights on real property and transactions with it", Regulation on the registration of the rights on real estate and transactions with it, and also Regulation on the registration fees raised at the state registration of the rights on real property and transactions with it.

Along with it the hard work on creation of regional normative base regulating problems of state registration of the rights on real property and transactions with it was done.

On August, 20, 1996 the Nizhniy Novgorod area management passed the decree ¹ 240 "On common principles of state registration of the rights on real property and transactions with it, creation and inventory control of real property on the territory of the Nizhniy Novgorod area " which established the Temporal regulation " On general principles of the state registration of the rights on real estate and transactions with it, creation and inventory control of the real property on the territory of the Nizhniy Novgorod area " and the Price-list for works on registration of the rights on real.

On October 16, 1996 the management of the Nizhniy Novgorod area passed the decree ¹ 274 " On creation of a system of state registration of the rights on real property and transactions with it and inventory control of real estate on the territory of the Nizhniy Novgorod area ".

After creation on March 31, 1998 of the Official bodies of justice of the Nizhniy Novgorod area, on April 3, 1998 the Regulation on establishment of justice, structure of the organization and its list of staff was adopted by the decree of the Nizhniy Novgorod area management ¹ 84 " On status and structure of the State body of justice of the Nizhniy Novgorod area ".

Created on the basis of Committee of the urban property control of Nizhni Novgorod the juridical department of the area has begun effecting state registration since July 1, 1998.

On January 1, 2000 50 affiliates acting in municipal departments of the Nizhniy Novgorod area make part of juridical department.

On January 1, 2000 the list number of the organization staff constitutes 358 men, including 97 registrars of rights.

From the moment of organization of the ORTIC CCCP till January 1, 2000 406846 registration operations were carried out.

For today we are on the second place in Russia on the number of registration operations. It is necessary to underline, that all this was done without any budgetary grants. A sole source of means of existence and development of department is the registration fee and the grant of information. Moreover, during its existence (a bit more then 20 months) the department has paid to the budgets of all levels about 15 million roubles as taxes, and 3 million roubles was transferred to the Ministry of Justice of Russian Federation as the centralized share. Thus a registration fee in our locale is one of the lowest in Russia.

Without wide introduction of a system of automation in a technology of registration of rights and grant of the information about registered rights it is impossible to effect registration operations efficiently. Therefore from the very beginning of creation of a system of state registration of the rights on real property and transactions with it the stress was made on automation of all technological processes connected with registration.

The creation of the automated system of registration of the rights began with the accomplishment of the World Bank project. In the Nizhniy Novgorod area the work on this project was done by an American corporation "Kemonics", which has received the grant to conduct these works. By April, 1996, the beginning of state registration of the rights on the territory of Nizhni Novgorod, in ORTIC CCCP the automated system of keeping of the land Records, which became basis of the automated system of forming of the Uniform state registry of the rights on real property and transactions with it was realized.

Now juridical department of the Nizhniy Novgorod area possesses about 250 computers, a part of them makes 16 local area webs. The local area networks of registration centers and head office in the city of Nizhni Novgorod are joined in a uniform corporate web on the basis of optic fiber data link.

In juridical department about ten databases operate and more than two tens programs operating with these bases and maintaining them in actual state, providing an efficient operation of the corporate web of a juridical department is the task of an automation sector of a juridical department.

During the period of activity of the official Body of justice of the Nizhniy Novgorod area for the practical application of the FL " On state registration of the rights on real property and transactions with it" the "Collected instructions and methodical recommendations on state registration of the rights on real property and transactions with it" was published, and included:

  • the instruction on the order of conducting of state registration of the rights on real property and transactions with it on the territory of the Nizhniy Novgorod area;
  • methodical recommendations on conducting legal expertise of the contracts of purchase, constant rent;
  • methodical recommendations on conducting legal expertise of the documents certifying rights of the citizens and legal entities on land lots;
  • forms of the abstracts from ÅÃÐÏ;
  • methodical letters of the Nizhniy Novgorod area Department of Justice;
  • circulars of juridical departments.

The Methodical guide on conducting state registration of rights (Registration operations on the records entering in ÅÃÐÏ) is additionally designed, which soon will be transferred to the registrars of rights for practical application.

Today we have already a certain experience in registration of rights on real estate and we have the image of main problems of this process.

First of all, from our point of view, the logic of legislative process is outraged. The FL " On state registration of the rights on real property and transactions with it" was to be passed first, anticipating the laws on the cadastral and technical registration of the real estate units. In the result a phase of forming of an object - the major phase of the registration - has turned to be poorly regulated. Even major objects of the civil level - gas and oil pipelines, communication and other networks, uninhabited premises, roads - had no organ of technical inventory control at all at a federal level.

Many problems result from numerous discrepancies in the local law. Today, for example, a registrar, having seen, that the real estate unit was purchased on the basis of the unlawful administrative act, does not have the right not only to refuse registration, but also to convert to court with the claim of canceling of the given act. The imperfection of the local law makes the work of a registrar, which should be strictly regulated, in a constant research and development process. A registrar has to make a decision himself in case of the explicit contravention of legislative acts, and his decision is not necessarily supported by court. Though the official Body of justice of the Nizhniy Novgorod area has twice as favorable statistics on lost cases, than the average in Russia, it is still a big problem. Especially if to take into account that the department should repay from its own means the material loss.

In countryside, as a rule, the majority of buildings were not brought to a list of inventory control, there were no plans of the land lots. It resulted in the fact that the costs on registration of a house (log hut) market price of which did not exceed 5-10 thousand roubles was 1,5 - 3 thousand roubles, made a transaction with such unit senseless from the commercial point of view. But if in case of the contract of purchase there is still a kind of, let misinterpreted logic, at coming into the rights of patrimony the population fairly considers such expenditures as mockery at the people and common sense.

Large censures are roused by the procedure of registration of the rights arisen before. The citizen can not understand, why the state which has once already accepted his rights by the way of putting a stamp of the BTI, not only asks for the repeated expensive procedure of registration, but also occasionally refuses this registration, though the legal owner has been using the unit for tens years and has been accurately paying taxes.

These are only the biggest problems connected with the FL "On state registration of the rights on real property and transactions with it", there is also a huge amount of private, finer problems, but nevertheless hampering the work of registrar seriously.

Its status itself, by the way, is very shaky. The law defines a registrar as a civil officer, however, as the department is not funded from the budget (and therefore pays, by the way, all aspects of taxes), registrars in the majority of the subjects of Russian Federation are not included in the registry of the civil officers, referring on the contravention with the FL "On bases of the state service of Russian Federation". And, as you can see, a registrar is the living man, he needs protection, pension warranties etc.

There are problems in the field of ensuring activity of the department as well. Beside taxes, which undermine seriously financial stability of the department, the tendency of falling of the registration fee below the margin has appeared recently. The governors, reacting to the petitions of the citizens about expensive registration, make swift decisions, forgetting that the maintenance of such complicated and big intelligence system requires large expenditures, and the scanty financing not only does not allow to explicate, but can also destroy what has been already made.

Something was actually made, anyway experts from France which have visited Nizhni Novgorod recently, admitted, that in the field of information supply of the registration process we are today ahead of such industrially advanced European center, as Lyons. And we can do even more, if our problems are considered with appropriate comprehension.