Over the years, the relevant authorities have been working on creating a unified federal system of state registration of rights to real estate and state cadastral registration of real estate.

In 2009, the Russian Ministry of Economic Development elaborated the Concept of establishing this unified system, a plan for implementing measures to establish it, as well as a plan for preparing the draft regulatory acts providing for the establishment and development of the unified federal system.

In 2012, the Russian Government approved a road map with a plan of measures aimed at enhancing quality of state services in state cadastral registration of real estate, as well as state registration of real estate rights and transactions.

The following were noted as the key goals for long-term development of the state registration system: enhancing quality and availability of state services, including rendering services in electronic form, reducing the expenses of individuals and companies in the course of registering rights to real estate, forming effective state systems of cadastral registration and registration of rights to real estate, including centralized arrangement of common state informational resources (registers, cadasters, classifiers, etc.).

To further this idea, on July 13, 2015 the Russian President signed Federal Law No.218-FZ “On state registration of real estate” (hereinafter the “Law”), which according to the authors is aimed at “enhancing the efficient operation of the state registration system and the level of the guarantees of rights in the course of state registration, which will help to reduce the risks of investing into real estate and will speed up economic turnover of real estate.”

What is new in the Law?

-  Unified state information system for real estate

The Unified State Register of Real Estate (the ‘EGRN’), representing a unified corpus of systemized information of registered real estate and registered rights to such real estate, grounds for acquiring such rights, rightholders, as well as other information established pursuant to the Law.

The EGRN will include: the real estate cadaster, register of rights to real estate, register of zone borders with special conditions for using territories, etc., as well as register files, cadaster maps and documents record logs.

The EGRN registers, cadastral maps and document record logs will be kept only in electronic form.

-  Unified registration procedure for real estate

The Law provides a possibility to simultaneously perform state cadastral registration and state registration of rights, in particular, in connection with: creation of a real estate property or terminating existence of a real estate property the rights to which are registered in the EGRN; creation or termination of existence of a part of a real estate property to which restrictions and encumbrances apply which are subject to state registration.

-  Shorter period of state cadastral registration and state registration of rights to real estate

The state registration of rights will take seven or nine days, respectively, from the date the registration authority or multifunctional center for state and municipal services (hereinafter the “multifunctional center”) accepts the application. That provided, the state cadastral registration will take five or seven days, respectively, from the date the registration authority or the multifunctional center accepts the application. At present, these procedures take ten business days, and in the event an application is submitted through a multifunctional center, the period can be substantially longer.

-  Introducing information to the EGRN based on inter-agency informational cooperation

State and municipal authorities must send documents (information contained therein) to the registration authority for purposes of introducing information to the EGRN if such authorities adopt any of the following decisions: on determining or changing the permitted use of a land plot; on approval of rules for land use and development, or on their amendment if such amendments provide or change the town-planning regulations; on categories attributable to land or on transferring land from one category to another; on the results of carrying out state supervision of lands, as well as on many other matters.

The Law contains many other provisions aimed at comprehensive regulation of state registration of rights to real estate, as well as cadastral registration of real estate, and also clarifies the limits of legal expert examination in the course of state registration of rights, as well as the liability of the state registration authority.

The Law enters into force starting from January 01, 2017, except certain provisions which enter into force only starting from January 01, 2020. 

Elena Stepanova  Partner                                Moscow   estepanova@cls.ru  Tel.: +7 (495) 970 10 90

Renata Plokhushko      Associate                Moscow      Tel.: +7 (495) 970 10 90

Additional notes

Should any questions arise in connection with the above or if you need any additional materials, please contact Elena Stepanova or Renata Plokhushko, Moscow Office of Capital Legal Services.

This Information letter keeps the clients of Capital Legal Services and other interested parties abreast of information that may, to any extent, affect their activity or cater to their particular interests. The opinions and commentaries expressed in this information letter shall not be deemed as legal opinions and do not cancel the need to obtain legal advice or legal opinion on separate issues.