A bill to expand the “dacha amnesty” has been introduced to the State Duma

A bill has been introduced to the State Duma to expand the “dacha amnesty” – simplified registration of previously built objects. It is proposed to extend it to “two-family” houses of blocked development, built before 1998, as well as outbuildings and auxiliary buildings – bathhouses, greenhouses, sheds, etc., registered before 2013. Now such objects can only be legalized in court, for which cadastral work must be carried out. Experts support the “consistent” expansion of the “dacha amnesty.”

A group of deputies and senators, including the head of the Duma Committee on State Construction and Legislation Pavel Krasheninnikov and senators Andrei Klishas and Andrei Turchak, contributed a bill on further expansion of the “dacha amnesty” has been submitted to the State Duma. The mechanism, we recall, has been in effect since 2006 – initially the “amnesty” implied the legalization of houses built on plots for gardening, personal farming and individual housing construction without permits for commissioning. The mechanism has been extended more than once and, according to current legislation, will continue until March 1, 2031. The possibility of simplified registration has also already been expanded – so, from 2019, the general property of SNT falls under the “amnesty” (see “Kommersant” dated November 27, 2023). As noted in the explanatory note, during the amnesty, more than 15 million people took advantage of the simplified registration of houses. At the same time, the authors of the initiative believe that there are still issues in real estate ownership relations that require elaboration.

In this regard, parliamentarians propose to extend the “dacha amnesty” mechanism to houses of blocked development (townhouses) built before May 14, 1998, provided that there are no more than two houses in one row (so-called two-family houses). The cut-off date was chosen by analogy with the general rules of “amnesty” – the day the Town Planning Code came into force. As Pavel Krasheninnikov explained, in the 1960s and 1970s, “people were often given houses under one roof and with a common wall” – “today’s problem is that such houses have a common wall and common communications, often one plot of land, due to which there are certain problems in registering rights.” Now citizens can register rights to such houses and land plots under them only in court.

It follows from the explanatory note that there are a lot of such buildings – in 63 regions there are more than 66 thousand two-apartment houses built from 1850 to 1999, without title documents.

In addition to them, it is proposed to extend the amnesty to household buildings located on areas intended for individual housing construction, personal farming and gardening – in particular, sheds, bathhouses, greenhouses, sheds, wells, summer kitchens, cellars. This “significant part of the real estate,” the explanatory note notes, today cannot undergo the state registration procedure, including due to the “time and financial costs of citizens for their registration” – this requires the implementation of cadastral work, the preparation of a declaration on the property and the implementation of state registration right In a simplified manner (based on old technical passports or assessment documentation), citizens will be able to register such auxiliary buildings if, before January 1, 2013, they were registered with technical and state records as part of a household, and also if the site itself is owned by a citizen.

The National Association of Low-Rise and Cottage Construction supports the initiative, as it consistently continues its course towards simplified registration of previously created real estate properties. NOSTROY President Anton Glushkov believes that “any legislative changes aimed at simplifying the procedure for registering capital construction projects should be assessed from a positive point of view,” since since Soviet times such real estate has remained “suspended” – physically existing, but from a legal point of view, absent.

Evgenia Kryuchkova