The Supreme Court explained whether an heir can claim land that has already been transferred to another owner

Can an heir demand the receipt of a land plot if it was already transferred to another person during the lifetime of the deceased? The Supreme Court considered a case in which the heir demanded the cancellation of the village council’s decision and the invalidation of the land exchange agreement concerning the land previously allocated to her mother during the distribution of land shares.

In case No. 723/2424/21, the Supreme Court annulled the decisions of the lower courts regarding the land plot that the heir was supposed to receive within the share but had already been transferred to another person. The case was sent back for a new trial to the court of first instance.

What the dispute was about

In 1997, the plaintiff’s mother was issued a certificate for the right to a land share (plot) of 1.02 hectares in conditional cadastral hectares on the land of a former agricultural firm. In 2002, the Krasnoyilska village council of Chernivtsi region approved the distribution of land shares (plots) in the "DOK" tract. According to the list of land share owners and the distribution scheme, the plaintiff’s mother was allocated a land plot of 0.15 hectares.

In January 2020, the court obliged the Krasnoyilska village council to allocate this land plot in kind. After the death of the land share owner, her daughter accepted the inheritance and became the successor in the enforcement proceedings.

However, in April 2021, the enforcement proceeding was returned to the claimant. The state executor noted that the land plot that was to be allocated to the heir already belonged to another owner — based on a land exchange agreement.

As established by the courts, in 2018 the Krasnoyilska village council granted ownership of a land plot of 0.1463 hectares in the "DOK" tract to another citizen. Later, he transferred it to another owner under a land exchange agreement.

The plaintiff believed that the former owner was not included in the list of persons to whom land shares were distributed in 2002 in the "DOK" tract, and therefore the village council’s decision to transfer the land plot to him violated her right to receive the land due to her.

The Storozhynets district court of Chernivtsi region in June 2025 denied the claim. The court concluded that the plaintiff did not provide sufficient evidence that the disputed land plot was the one that should have been allocated to her within the share. The Chernivtsi appellate court in October 2025 upheld this decision.

The plaintiff appealed the decision to the Supreme Court.

What the Supreme Court established

The Supreme Court noted that the resolution of issues regarding the transfer of land plots into ownership or use from state or communal land belongs to the competence of the relevant executive authority or local self-government body.

The Supreme Court stated that the owner or land user can demand the elimination of any violations of their land rights, even if such violations are not related to deprivation of the right to possess the land plot. Among the means of protecting land rights, the law provides, in particular, recognition of rights, restoration of the land plot’s condition that existed before the violation, invalidation of agreements, and invalidation of decisions of executive authorities or local self-government bodies.

The court also noted that claims to recognize as illegal and cancel a decision of an authority on the transfer of a land plot into ownership and to cancel the state registration of such a right under certain conditions may be considered as a way to remove obstacles in the use and disposal of property if these decisions and registration create such obstacles.

The Supreme Court considers the conclusions of the courts of first and appellate instances about the absence of the plaintiff’s violated right premature. The court took into account that by a previous court decision, the village council was obliged to allocate the land plot to her mother precisely in the "DOK" tract.

Moreover, the conclusion of the judicial land-technical expertise dated May 19, 2023, No. 69 established that the land plot of 0.1463 hectares owned by another defendant is the land plot of 0.15 hectares allocated to the plaintiff’s mother according to the Krasnoyilska village council decision dated June 19, 2002, No. 20-2/2002, the list of land share owners, and the distribution scheme.

At the same time, the lower courts rejected this conclusion as inadmissible evidence. They referred to the fact that the expertise was conducted using the coordinates of the turning points of the land plot boundaries available in the technical documentation, while the boundaries of the land plot allocated to the plaintiff’s mother were established by a wooden fence and boundary markers.

The Supreme Court noted that in case of doubts about the expert’s conclusion, the court has procedural mechanisms provided by the Civil Procedure Code of Ukraine to resolve them. In particular, the court may summon the expert for oral explanations, and if the conclusion is unclear — appoint an additional or repeated expertise.

According to the Supreme Court, the court of first instance, by rejecting the expert’s conclusion, did not ensure a full, comprehensive, and objective clarification of the case circumstances. Thus, it did not comply with the main principles of civil proceedings — adversariality and dispositiveness — and prematurely denied the claim. The appellate court did not correct these violations.

The Supreme Court emphasized that the cassation instance cannot independently establish new circumstances of the case, evaluate new evidence, or determine which evidence has priority over others. Since the lower courts improperly examined the evidence and did not establish circumstances important for the correct resolution of the dispute, their decisions are subject to annulment.

During the new trial, the court of first instance must take into account the points stated in this ruling, ensure the parties' right to a fair trial, properly examine all evidence collected in the case, give them and the parties' arguments appropriate legal assessment, and in case of disagreement with the expert conclusion available in the case materials, appoint another expertise (additional, repeated), based on the results of which the plaintiff’s claims should be considered in accordance with current legislation.

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