“The institution of property has been challenged”

“We registered the house, but four months later a lawsuit arrived: demolish it at your own expense, there will be no compensation.”

On one of the Russian real estate websites you can find an amazing ad.

The owner of six acres in the Sova cottage village, located just 42 kilometers from the Moscow Ring Road, lists the advantages of this place: developed infrastructure, a reservoir is very close by, and in the center of the village there is a lake with carps. The owner is selling a plot without a house for 1.8 million rubles, and urgently - so much so that the buyer can count on a “good bargain”. The announcement is preceded by a note: capital construction is prohibited. And this proposal itself, according to its author, is “for enterprising people and lawyers” who “understand the situation in the village of Sova.”

Cottages in Sova are under threat of demolition, as are 12 other villages in the Pushkin urban district northeast of Moscow. The local administration demanded that they be demolished; it also expects to confiscate the land from the owners.

According to Kommersant, we are talking about about two thousand houses - that’s how many owners turned to the federal government with a request to check the legality of the demolition of buildings in the Pushkin District.

Not only residents of the Moscow region faced such a court case. Basically, prosecutors are trying to seize plots in prestigious locations - near reservoirs or near resorts.

Here are just a few examples

• 2021, Sochi. The prosecutor's office seized 11 thousand plots in the case of “illegal removal from the lands of the national park.” Of these, almost eight thousand were built up with residential buildings and commercial buildings. Some plots have already been confiscated ;
• 2022, annexed Crimea, the village of Uyutnoye. The local administration officially sold the land, but in 2022 the prosecutor’s office stated that the owners received it illegally and demanded that the plots be confiscated and the houses already built be demolished;
• 2023, Krasnodar region, village of Shepsi. The Prosecutor General's Office called transactions with 46 land plots “imaginary” and demanded the demolition of 157 commercial buildings and private houses;
• 2024, Krasnodar region, Olginka village. The court declared transactions with 42 land plots void and approved their seizure in favor of the state;
• 2025, Lomonosovsky district, Leningrad region. To “protect the water supply system of the Peterhof fountains,” the local administration demands the demolition of 1.2 thousand residential buildings, calling them “unauthorized buildings”;
• 2025, Dinsky district of the Krasnodar region. The court ruled that about 1.5 thousand plots were illegally removed from state ownership, so they should be seized and the houses demolished;
• 2026, Karachay-Cherkess Republic, Arkhyz. Based on the prosecutor’s claim about the “illegal” acquisition of land, the authorities have already seized six hectares with hotels and residential buildings for state income.

The agency finds violations in the chain of ownership up to the early 1990s and files claims against the current owners. That is, if the violation was committed by an owner who bought or privatized the land 30 years ago, the court may declare the right of ownership of all subsequent owners illegal.

In 2005, the administration of the Pushkin urban district transferred part of the agricultural land for the construction of residential buildings and sold the land. For the next 15 years, it was owned by an individual (Bereg could not determine his name). By the early 2020s, he sold the plots to companies, and they designed cottage villages, including Sova. Land sales in the villages started in 2022, the first houses appeared in 2023. And the next year, Natalya Krotova, a resident of Sova, received a lawsuit from the administration of the Pushkin city district.

Calling Natalya’s house an “unauthorized construction,” the administration demanded that it be demolished. Krotova won the trial court. But in 2025, the district administration filed an appeal. This time Natalya lost .

According to the court, the local administration was able to prove that Natalya Krotova’s house is located “in the zone of sanitary protection of the source of drinking water supply” - that is, the Uchinsky reservoir.

This is the largest reservoir of the Moscow canal system. Water enters it from a network of other reservoirs, settles, and then is redirected to the Eastern Water Treatment Station near Balashikha. There, the water undergoes filtration before ending up in the taps of Muscovites living in the northeast and east of the capital.

According to the letter from Rospotrebnadzor, which was presented by the Pushkin administration, new construction within the boundaries of the Uchinsky reservoir is prohibited.

“It was impossible to think that this was a water protection zone,” says Sergei, a resident of the neighboring village of Vesna Park, whose plot also ended up within the boundaries of the sanitary protection zone. — The Uchinskoe reservoir is located across the field from us. We didn’t even turn to a lawyer to check anything: we didn’t see a reason.”

A resident of Sova, Ivan, told Bereg that residents began building the bulk of the houses a year after Natalya received the claim. The administration of the Pushkin City District did not make any statements about a ban on construction. The only announcement that the villages “are located in a restricted construction zone” appeared on the administration’s website in 2023 - just one paragraph under the heading “Information message.”

Such a notice does not seem sufficient to Ivan: “It’s unlikely that anyone, when buying land, looks at the archive of news from the local administration over recent years. It's just funny. But the court does not recognize that this is inadequate notice.”

Ivan built the house in 2024. The specialists who helped him register the property in the cadastral register also knew nothing about the prohibitions.

“That is, no one knows anything, everything is clean everywhere. We registered the house - and three months later we received a “letter of happiness” that our site was located in the water protection zone of a drinking source. And four months later a lawsuit arrived - the same as Natalya Krotova’s: demolish the house at your own expense, there will be no compensation, you are a self-builder,” Ivan is indignant.

According to Sergei, who lives in the neighboring Vesna Park, the land in the village has been sold and developed since 2022 - there were no problems with registering houses. Residents applied for registration in their houses, the administration did not interfere with this.

“When all the plots were sold and houses were built on most of them, the administration sent notices to the place of registration demanding their demolition,” says Sergei. “I still don’t understand how this is possible.” Totally absurd. The lands were officially demarcated, officially purchased, there was a lot of advertising for these settlements - and then bans appear.” Plots in these villages are still for sale.

After the start of the trial, residents tried to get an explanation from the local administration: they were interested in why the lands were sold despite the ban. Sergei from Vesna Park got the impression from the administration’s responses that she herself “didn’t know anything about the ban for some time.” “We don’t know why this is so. It’s just that suddenly someone decided that we all needed to be taken and demolished,” sums up Sergei.

Residents of the villages assume that the lands taken from them will then be sold many times more expensive. “To questions addressed to the administration: “How is it that we bought plots, and now we have to demolish our houses at our own expense and give away the land?” They answered us: “It’s not us, they forced us,” recalls Ivan:

The most interesting thing is that between our village and the reservoir there are old SNT, to which no one has any complaints. Our assumption is that these SNT are assigned to the Ministry of Defense or the FSB.

Of course, we asked the administration, they say, comrades, how is it that we are further from the water - you want to demolish us. But those guys are closer to the water, but you don’t touch them? We were told, with reference to some unknown document, that only new construction was prohibited. Okay, we say, but anything new is from what date? No one could answer this question for us.

According to Ivan, in order to find out exactly where the boundaries of the water protection zone lie, you need to have a license to work with state secrets: this is what the administration told the residents of the villages. “This information is kept at the disposal of the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources of the Moscow Region and is classified as ‘secret,’” a resident of Sova recalls the administration’s response.

Property owners in the villages managed to find a lawyer with access to state secrets. But they still didn’t show him the order. “They are confusing their tracks. We are all being extinguished in full,” Ivan says sadly.

At one of the meetings, he recalls, an employee of the administration of the Pushkin city district said: “You are all outside the law here. Why are you lined up here?” “And after one of the hearings, during which the judge made a decision on the demolition of houses, she said: “Excuse me, please,” continues Ivan. “We see this as confirmation that there is pressure on the court from above.”

“They have nowhere else to live, and the court doesn’t care”

Sberbank, where Ivan took out a mortgage, was involved in the lawsuit as a third party . “I received a whole Talmud in the mail from Sberbank. They wrote that it was not my fault, that the administration was to blame. But the court doesn’t care,” says a resident of Sova.

The demolition of houses must be paid for by their owners. The court gave Natalya Krotova six months to do this. The fine for each day of delay is 500 rubles. “At the same time, we must continue to pay the mortgage for the next 29 years,” Ivan clarifies. — And the interest rate can rise to 18–20%, because the bank will lose the collateral. Although, it seems, the deputy chairman of Sberbank knows about us. And, it seems, there is a verbal agreement that they will not increase the percentage.”

Residents of 13 villages in the Pushkinsky District lost all the trials.

Sergei bought the land together with his father, who wanted to live in his own house upon retirement. Sergei’s father had an apartment in Moscow, and with the money from its sale he bought a plot in Vesna Park.

Many residents of cottage villages in the Pushkinsky District came from other regions: they sold all their real estate there in order to invest their savings in new houses. “They have nowhere else to live, and the court doesn’t care,” sums up Ivan.

In mid-April, residents of the Pushkin urban district began to have hope. The administration invited the initiative group to an official meeting. As Ivan recalls, representatives of the administration reported that “due to social tension,” its officials, the Ministry of Ecology and Rospotrebnadzor held a meeting at which they decided “on the possibility of adjusting the boundaries of the environmental zone.”

“I hope words turn into deeds. But I also fear that a revision in our favor will not happen. They will later say that everything has been double-checked, and it is impossible to reduce the zone boundary,” Sergei fears. He plans to defend the house his father bought “to the last drop of blood.”

Ivan shares Sergei’s concerns. Residents, he said, do not rule out that the meeting may turn out to be a “PR stunt on the part of the administration,” and that the examination carried out by the Ministry of Ecology will not be in favor of the plot owners. “You can draw anything. They will write that settlements cause damage to nature,” Sergei expects.

An independent examination showed that the settlement does not threaten the reservoir. “The court accepted the examination, but what happened to it next is unclear,” says Ivan. - Either they heard us, or some kind of multi-move. We can’t relax, we don’t trust anyone. Because we already had it when we said: “We are mortgage holders with six hundred square meters,” and they answered us: “You are all violators there.”

“Judging by the situation in the country, this can happen to anyone at any time, regardless of when and where the land was purchased and the house was built,” says Sergei.

“It has become very difficult to protect the buyer”

In 2009, Sochi resident Irina Sitnikova and her husband bought a plot of land for their son Ivan. “Here, son, you have land in Sochi, the children will go - you will build a house, you will come with them to breathe the air from your Moscow,” Irina told Sochi.ru. On the property, the family laid out a garden, planted figs, and installed beehives.

All the Sitnikovs’ land documents were in order, the family claims. But this did not save them from the prosecutor's claim. In 2021, the Prosecutor General's Office initiated a criminal case of fraud during the withdrawal of land from the Sochi National Park.

The Sitnikovs’ plot was located on this land. SNT "Medic", where they bought the land, was founded in the late 1950s, and the Sochi National Park, from which the land was allegedly taken out, was founded in 1983.

“The trial lasted 30 minutes, they didn’t let me open my mouth,” Sitnikova told reporters. According to Irina, the head of the national park archive and the employee who inspected the site found counterfeit stamps in the Sitnikovs’ documents. When the defendants asked the prosecutor whether these employees had a license to make such an opinion, Irina was told: there is no license, but “the court has no reason not to trust them.”

The court deprived the Sitnikovs of their property rights and rejected the appeal.

This story is one of thousands that have already happened in Sochi. In total, 11 thousand plots were seized due to the criminal case initiated by the Prosecutor General’s Office. Following the seizure of plots, owners began to receive claims for the seizure of their lands.

“Such claims are appearing all over the country,” Svetlana Shirina, director of the Krasnodar law firm Miar Group, tells Bereg. “In Sochi, the state says that the first owner of the land in the chain of owners received the land illegally, which means that the current owners have no right to it.”

The mood of Sochi residents is “frightened, sad, some are embittered,” continues Shirina. According to her, among the defendants there are many local residents, including mothers of many children: “Not everyone got this property easily.”

The line of large families applying for land in Krasnodar is practically not moving. After years of waiting, families independently buy land and build houses, and then end up in court, Svetlana says.

This happened to Vadim and Marina Gubsky and their three children. The five of them lived in a 14-meter room, for which they paid a mortgage, Sochi.ru wrote . They waited a long time for the site from the state, but it never came. In 2021, the Gubskys bought land in the Ozernoye SNT in the urban district of Sochi, poured the foundation for the house and took out a loan for construction. After this, the prosecutor's office filed a lawsuit against the Gubskys. The family found out about it by accidentally seeing the document on the court’s website - they did not receive any notifications. It turned out that the land was seized due to the “illegal withdrawal of land” from the Sochi National Park.

“It has become much more difficult for me to work,” complains lawyer Svetlana Shirina, whose company offers pre-sale inspections to Krasnodar residents. — I want to be confident in my work, I want to protect the buyer. But it became very difficult."

According to her, if the Unified State Register of Real Estate indicates that a plot of land is suitable for individual housing construction (IHC), this does not always mean that it is really possible to build a house there. First, you need to make sure that the site falls into the individual housing construction zone both in the general plan and in the land use rules. And ideally, Shirina adds, it is better to restore the entire chain of owners:

Sometimes this is not possible because government authorities have the right to refuse access to personal data. And most importantly, try to find a seller who is willing to wait two or three months while you write to all authorities. The seller will say: Lord, why do I need you like that?

However, such thorough checks do not help everyone. Builder Igor Gelver bought a plot of land in the village of Chereshnya, Adler District, in 2019, and a year and a half later he learned that the land had been seized due to fraud with the lands of the Sochi National Park. Moreover, before purchasing, Igor carefully studied the history of the site since 1993 and identified all three previous owners.

Local activist Evgeniy Chumachenko, whose plot was also seized, in a conversation with Sochi journalists called what was happening around the lands allegedly illegally withdrawn from the Sochi National Park as a “raider takeover.”

In November 2022, about a year after the seized plots began to be confiscated, Evgeniy created the Right to Land organization. She provided free legal support to defendants in cases involving the withdrawal of land from a national park. Since 2025, “Right to Land” has been in a state of liquidation; Chumachenko did not answer Bereg’s questions.

“We, lawyers, are sometimes at a loss - how can we prove the good faith of buyers if, it seems, everything is on the surface, all the documents and evidence are there? But the claim is still not in favor of the defendants. The right to private property has been shaken,” says Svetlana Shirina.

Russians themselves are reluctant to talk about the fact that their land is being taken away or has already been taken away. The Bereg correspondent sent dozens of messages to the owners of the confiscated lands asking for a conversation, but received only a few replies. One of the residents of Sochi, whose house had already been demolished, explained her refusal as follows:

When billions of valuables are taken away from the mayor, and houses of ordinary people are demolished, plots are confiscated, families are ruined, covering this situation will not change this situation in any way.

“The institution of property has been challenged”

To purchase land in the Krasnodar village of Starokorsunskaya, the new owners used maternity capital, invested savings and took out a mortgage. “One large family with 12 children purchased land with a government subsidy,” says lawyer Svetlana Shirina.

In 2024, the prosecutor's office filed a lawsuit demanding the return of these lands to the state. According to the department, the previous owner of the lands, David Topolyan, obtained them illegally. This means that the new owners also do not have rights to the land, even if they have confirmation of the bona fide acquisition.

Residential buildings have already been built on some plots in the village; their owners were able to register the property without any problems. Some of the houses did not have time to be completed; Commercial facilities have been built in some areas.

In the second year of consideration of the case, the prosecutor's office clarified its demands: now it demands the seizure of only undeveloped plots - for the benefit of the state and without any compensation. The prosecutor's office offers owners of plots with residential buildings to leave the land. Those who built commercial buildings on it were less fortunate: they are required to demolish it at their own expense and confiscate the land for state income.

Svetlana represents the interests of one of the defendants (he asked not to give his name). “Both I and other lawyers and jurists involved in the case believe that the prosecutor’s office filing a new claim is a gross violation of procedural law. This is unacceptable,” Shirina is sure:

But the court accepted such clarifications and satisfied them in full. This cannot but worry lawyers, because, from a legal point of view, the institution of fair acquisition of property is being seriously challenged.

“In an informal setting, the prosecutor said that the land should be given to the participants of the SVO”

Anapa resident Ekaterina says that in the 1990s the local administration distributed land in the villages of Tsibanobalka, Nizhnyaya Gostagayka and Pyatikhatki - they are located just a few kilometers from the sea. The plots were received by land shareholders - former employees of local agricultural enterprises.

An entrepreneur bought one of the land shares; in 2019, he managed to transfer agricultural land for individual housing construction (IHC). “He divided everything into small plots of six to nine acres and sold it to individuals, that is, to us,” recalls Ekaterina.

Ekaterina refused to name the previous owner of the land. A press release from the Krasnodar Territory prosecutor's office refers to “unidentified persons” who illegally took possession of the land and caused damage to the state in the amount of 130 million rubles. Local media also did not name the entrepreneur; Bereg failed to find out.

“Perhaps this is actually a pawn that has just been registered. And it was all the officials who were in the administration in 2019 who pulled it off,” says Ekaterina.

Because of their proximity to the sea, residents of Anapa call these places “delicious.” According to her, 159 more families bought plots with her in the early 2020s.

“In April 2025, we began to receive claims from the prosecutor’s office, where we were identified as defendants in the case of the incorrect position of the coordinate points of the plots,” continues Ekaterina. - And they also charge that “citizen M.” ( meaning the shareholder - note "Berega" ) illegally increased the area of ​​land through the same Soviet Court of Krasnodar from 180 to 960 acres. Five times!”

Ekaterina fears that if the prosecutor’s office’s demand for the demolition of the coordinate points of the plots is satisfied (in fact, this will mean the destruction of the boundaries of the plots), the next demand may be to demolish the houses as unauthorized buildings.

The owners of the plots have already written appeals to the president, the Investigative Committee, the FSB and the Prosecutor General's Office, but, as Ekaterina said, “all complaints were sent to the edge”:

And here there are only unsubscribes. In an informal setting, the prosecutor told us that land should be given to participants of the SVO and families with many children, but there is no land. Therefore, where you can pick it up - that’s what they do.

Ekaterina shared her pain in a comment under a post by lawyer and public figure Katya Gordon. Her law firm represents the interests of the defendant in a very similar case - the purchase of a land plot in Simferopol.

According to Gordon, in 1991 the local executive committee allocated the site from municipal land to private ownership. 35 years later, the Investigative Committee opened a criminal case against the owners: it considered that back then, in the 1990s, the land was registered for use using forged documents. The demand of the prosecutor's office, as in other similar cases, is to return all lands to the state.

Under Gordon's Instagram post there are dozens of comments telling similar stories. Not finding support from government agencies, people write to her and blogger Victoria Bona, who has recently begun to be perceived as a defender of the interests of those whom the authorities have not heard:

Please pay attention to us. Our families may remain on the streets.

“Six acres with a house is a bond that cannot be encroached upon”

Owners of summer cottages may also face the threat of a lawsuit for seizure of land. At the end of 2025, the Tuapse court decided to demolish buildings on 65 summer cottages in the elite village of Burevestnik near Tuapse - they were recognized as “unauthorized buildings” at the request of the prosecutor’s office. The plots should become the property of the state.

The owner of the dacha in Burevestnik, Daria, with whom Bereg spoke (the interlocutor’s name has been changed at her request), connects the case with “the consequences of the residents’ relationship with the sanatorium of bailiffs “Green Valley,” which is located not far from the village.

While Green Valley was owned by a private company, residents of Burevestnik could walk around its territory and had access to the beach. Then the sanatorium was bought by the Federal Bailiff Service. “Moscow guys,” explains Daria. Access to the territory and to the beach was immediately closed.

Daria's family bought a dacha in Burevestnik 20 years ago. According to her, the houses in the village are owned by “different people,” including Olga and Kirill Khakhalev, the mother and son of the former “golden judge” of the regional court Elena Khakhaleva . “But they are also powerless, because the Moscow bailiffs have arrived,” says Daria.”

In 2024, Daria’s family received a lawsuit stating that in the 1980s the land was a garage cooperative, then it was allegedly illegally privatized, the purpose of the land was changed for individual housing construction, delimited into plots and sold for the construction of cottages. “We asked representatives of the administration at the trial: how did this happen? They just shrugged their shoulders and said: “Well, we don’t know,” recalls a resident of Burevestnik:

We have invested a lot of money and work here. Two years ago the village was flooded, there was water on the first floor of the houses. As soon as everything was repaired, this story began.

Lawyer Svetlana Shirina calls six acres with a house and a garden “a bond that cannot be encroached upon.” “For those who got these six hundred square meters with great difficulty, what is happening is horror and shock,” Shirina is sure:

People are irritated. They see on the news that this is happening all over the country. At every meeting people expect a miracle, but it does not happen. The defendants have a silent question on their faces: why us? We are not criminals, we didn’t do anything like that. We just wanted to live, enjoy life.

According to Daria, the current legislative system is not aimed at protecting property owners: “The worst thing is that virtually no one is protected now, no one can feel safe, no one can be sure that your property will remain your property.”

“Why are you guys on strike? The Supreme Court is still for us"

Back in the 2000s, Bogdan’s father from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky bought 840 square meters of land at a state auction and a warehouse located on it in the local Fishing Port. “I bought a little bottle like this, saying that it would be just in case. This is like capital for me, my sister and mother - well, you never know,” says Bogdan. They “stored rubbish” in the warehouse, sometimes rented out the premises, and in recent years it has been empty.

“In 2025, a man called me, he wanted to rent our warehouse,” Bogdan recalls. — At the meeting it turned out that this was a major from the Investigative Committee. He said that our property ended up in a lawsuit against corrupt officials. What kind of lawsuit, which way are we there? They didn’t show me the lawsuit - only local media news.”

The main defendant in the lawsuit filed by the Prosecutor General’s Office at the end of 2024, which also included Bogdan’s family, was former regional official Alexander Ivanchey. He owned 98.32% of the port territory - according to the Prosecutor General's Office, Ivanchey received the land through corruption.

Bogdan at first hoped that he became a co-defendant by mistake - he thought that “everyone was taken under the hot hand, but now they’ll sort it out.” But this did not happen; the land and warehouse were confiscated, and Bogdan’s accounts were blocked. “Moreover,” he continues, “in order to pay for a lawyer, I had to sell my one-room apartment. Now I have to live with my mother.”

Before one of the hearings, a Petropavlovsk resident recalls, a prosecutor from Moscow addressed the defendants who were waiting for the hearing to begin in the corridor: “Why are you guys on strike? The Supreme Court is still on our side.” The local judge who considered the case had transferred from the prosecutor’s office just six months earlier, and the defendants failed to get her recusal.

The prosecutor's arguments about the affiliation of the Bogdan family with corrupt officials are based on the fact that the same accountant helped them and two dozen other companies file tax returns.

“If the corrupt officials privatized something wrong in the 1990s, then we bought the land at official auctions! - Bogdan is indignant. “We are conscientious buyers.” He believes that this case is “sabotage” against government power and is going to submit an appeal to FSB Director Alexander Bortnikov:

They tell me: I don’t need to do this. If such chaos occurs, they can invent something and you will go to prison. Maybe it's better to just forget. But I can't.

Bereg sent inquiries to representatives of departments and organizations mentioned in the text, but at the time of publication had not received any responses.

"Shore"