Notaries and property managers will have to pay for real estate information from 2025

From 2025, the fee for requesting information from Rosreestr about rights to real estate may increase, and the circle of persons who have the right to receive data for free will be narrowed. Notaries and arbitration managers (AMs) who handle bankruptcy cases will be excluded from the list. This idea is proposed by the government in the explanatory note to the draft federal budget, explaining that the measure will bring the treasury an additional 21 billion rubles. in year. Lawyers and AUs warn that these costs will ultimately fall on the bankrupt’s creditors and will be reflected in an increase in notary fees.

The explanatory note to the draft federal budget for 2024–2026, which Interfax reviewed, states that from 2025 the fee for providing information from the Unified State Register of Real Estate (USRN) may increase. Tariff increase parameters are not provided. Now the cost of the service depends on what data and who is requesting it. Thus, requesting an extract from Rosreestr about the main characteristics of a real estate property and registered rights to it now costs 460 rubles for citizens. for a paper document (290 rubles for an electronic one), for legal entities – 1270 rubles. (820 rubles for electronic).

In addition, the document proposes to exclude notaries and arbitration managers from the list of persons who have the right to receive information from Rosreestr free of charge. The list of such persons is enshrined in Art. 63 of the Law “On State Registration of Rights to Real Estate”, it includes, among other things, courts, bailiffs, prosecutors, MFC, Central Bank, Rosatom, Roscosmos and others. The “cumulative effect” of increasing fees and reducing the number of preferential requests is estimated at 21.4 billion rubles. in 2025 and the same in 2026. The White House and the Ministry of Finance did not respond to Kommersant’s requests.

“This proposal, on the one hand, continues the trend of limiting access to information contained in the Unified State Register of Real Estate, and on the other hand, is aimed at increasing the revenue side of the budget,” notes Alexander Kazarin, senior lawyer in the VEGAS LEX special projects practice. But, emphasizes Susana Kirakosyan, adviser to the BVMP law office, the Unified State Register of Real Estate was originally “created to publicly notify third parties about the existence of rights to real estate, and the information in it should be accessible.”

In 2022, Mr. Kazarin clarifies, the opportunities for persons who are not property rights holders to obtain information about the rights to this property have already been limited. As a result, there was a “collapse in the real estate and housing and communal services market,” notes Ms. Kirakosyan, which forced them to request information about property owners through notaries, incurring additional costs and proving their right to access information. However, notaries even outside of such cases often apply for an extract from the Unified State Register of Real Estate, for example, as part of conducting inheritance cases, adds Alexander Kazarin.

If notaries are deprived of the right to receive information for free, “it is obvious that the cost of notarial services will be increased to compensate for the costs,” warns Mr. Kazarin. That is, the costs will ultimately fall on persons turning to notaries for these services, says Susana Kirakosyan.

Similar consequences await creditors in bankruptcies. AU Sergei Domnin explains that managers, performing their functions in a bankruptcy case, request information from various organizations and authorities (Rosreestr requests information about the assets of the debtor, his relatives and controlling persons) and receive information from them free of charge. If the request to the Unified State Register is paid, the AU itself will initially have to finance these expenses from its own pocket, in order to then transfer the costs to the bankruptcy estate, reducing the amount of funds received by creditors, clarifies Sergei Domnin. He fears that, following Rosreestr, other authorities (State Traffic Safety Inspectorate, Federal Tax Service) will raise the issue of paid provision of information to AU.

Chairman of the expert council of the All-Russian Trade Union of Arbitration Administrators (ORPAU), Maxim Dotsenko, considers the initiative “another attempt to put the hands of the budget into the bankruptcy estate of the debtor.” He notes that, “on the one hand, the state is fighting for the efficiency of bankruptcy and a high percentage of repayment of creditors’ claims, and on the other hand, everything is being done to prevent this efficiency from happening.”

AU Pavel Zamalaev also has a negative attitude towards the idea. Any complication of the procedure for obtaining information about the debtor “will with a high degree of probability lead to an increase in the terms of the bankruptcy procedure, and may also lead to losses for the bankruptcy estate,” he explains: for example, the lack of operational information about a suspicious transaction will allow the debtor’s property to be resold and reduce the likelihood of its return to bankruptcy mass. “The purpose of replenishing the budget by introducing a fee is simple and clear. But, in my opinion, possible negative consequences may outweigh the positive effect,” believes AU. Managers hope that systemic creditors, such as banks, will actively object to the idea.

Anna Zanina, Evgenia Kryuchkova