The decision of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court in 2020 regarding the lands of permanent use of farms did not become the sole guideline for lower courts and state registrars. In practice, some rely on it, while others ignore it, leading to legal chaos and forcing farmers to repeatedly prove their rights. This was stated by the lawyer-expert of the All-Ukrainian Farmers’ Congress Yaroslava Ovcharenko at the organization’s round table.
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According to her, the Grand Chamber clearly stated: since a natural person received a land plot specifically for the creation of a farm and entrepreneurial activities, from the moment of registering the farm, the right of permanent use is transferred to the legal entity. This decision is used by some first-instance courts, and the Ministry of Justice referred to it in 2023, explaining the redemption procedure.
However, another part of the courts takes the opposite position. Some recognize only the natural person – the owner of the state act – as the buyer. Others, on the contrary, believe that the right to redemption belongs only to the farm as a legal entity and refuse individuals. Depending on which court the farmer applied to and what position a specific judge took, the result can be diametrically opposed.
State registrars mostly take the most conservative position: despite the Supreme Court decision and the Ministry of Justice’s explanations, they refuse to register the right of permanent use for the farm based on a state act issued to a natural person. The standard argument is that the special law on state registration does not include such a document in the list of grounds for registration, so the right must be established through a court order.
According to the representative of the Ministry of Economy Svitlana Rudenko, the problem partly lies in the formulation of the “automatic transfer” of rights: under Ukrainian legislation, any right arises only from its state registration, and there can be no automatism here. Until this collision is resolved at the legislative level, registrars will have grounds for refusal, and judicial practice will remain inconsistent.
The Farmers’ Congress insists: until the problem is resolved in a special law, the Supreme Court decision does not protect farmers from refusals. Every time the issue of redemption or registration arises, the farm is forced to either spend years in court proceedings or hope that the registrar will be among those who share the Grand Chamber’s position. The legislative change being prepared by the organization aims to make the norm direct and unambiguous, independent of judicial discretion.