Sales volume in a cottage village can reach 1 billion rubles

A criminal case has been opened in the Leningrad Region regarding fraud with land plots in the Gatchina Estates cottage community, the sales volume of which, according to experts, can reach 1 billion rubles.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation for the Gatchina district (Leningrad region) opened a criminal case under Art. 159 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (fraud). As the St. Petersburg police clarified, the subject of the fraud was land plots in the Gatchina Estates cottage community.

According to open sources, the implementation of the Gatchina Estates project began back in 2010. A plot of land measuring 18 hectares is located 9 km from the administrative border of St. Petersburg, between the Kyiv highway and the railway. It is planned to build 135 cottages on it, the plot for which could be 6–19 acres. IBS Divelapes LLC (part of the IBS group of companies), which is implementing the project, promises to provide utilities to the houses, and it is planned to develop social infrastructure in the village itself. The cost of one household, according to unofficial data, is about 6 million rubles. At the moment, about 60 cottages have been sold. During the implementation of the project, the company was reorganized several times.

As the applicant in the case, Olga Evmenenko, told Kommersant, in December 2011 she signed a preliminary agreement with the IBS company to purchase a plot of land with a house in Gatchina Estates. According to the terms of the contract, the main real estate contract had to be concluded with her no later than one year from the date of signing the preliminary one. In September 2014, having learned of IBS’s intention to transfer ownership of the property to her, Olga Evmenenko paid the balance of the amount under the preliminary agreement. However, she did not receive ownership of the plot. Moreover, in the spring of 2015, from the Unified State Register extract, the future resident of Gatchina Estates learned that her plot and house belonged to one of the IBS managers. Nevertheless, by August 2015, Ms. Evmenenko finally moved into her house, having paid a total of about 5.5 million rubles to the IBS company, but never received title documents for the property. According to Olga Evmenenko, the rights to the land and house now belong to Alexander Kopteev, the founder of IBS Divelapes. Kommersant was unable to contact Mr. Kopteev.

Lawyer Roman Sumarokov, representing the interests of Olga Evmenenko, sees a fraudulent scheme in what happened. According to him, initially the land and houses belonged to IBS Divelapes. However, in 2014, one of the company’s employees presented promissory notes from IBS Divelapes to the Magistrate’s Court No. 55 (Kalininsky district of St. Petersburg). 107 million rubles were recovered in his favor, but the company did not have the money, and therefore the businessmen entered into a settlement agreement with the holder of the bills, transferring to him 127 real estate objects (land and houses) of the Gatchina Estates. According to this transaction, as Roman Sumarokov clarified, the company also transferred home ownership, for which preliminary agreements were concluded and money was paid by the buyers. In the summer of 2015, the new owner of Gatchina Estates sold all the property to Alexander Kopteev as an individual.

The settlement agreement in October 2015 was canceled by the St. Petersburg City Court at the request of Sberbank: the financial institution issued a loan to the company secured by part of the plots of the Gatchina Estates. Now the Arbitration Court of St. Petersburg and the Leningrad Region has begun bankruptcy proceedings for IBS Divelapes.

As experts interviewed by Kommersant note, there are risks when purchasing suburban real estate, but, for example, double sales of plots, notes Polina Yakovleva, director of the residential real estate department at NAI Becar, are rather an exception to the rule. “In the case of the Gatchina Estates village, the developer is currently selling households from a business card website and, during the conversation, redirects them to a third-party portal, where more detailed information is presented - layouts, construction progress, etc. At the same time, houses from private person, so it is obvious that the sale from the developer has been suspended,” notes Elizaveta Conway, director of the residential real estate department at Colliers International in St. Petersburg. According to Victoria Konstantinova, Director of Valuation at NAI Becar in St. Petersburg, the cost of a land plot, depending on the availability of utilities and their performance, can range from 190–300 million rubles. And Ms. Conway estimates possible sales volumes in the village at up to 1 billion rubles.

Dmitry Marakulin, St. Petersburg

Gatchina Estates will be checked for fraud