The Cadastre Decides Everything: How the Absence of Established Land Plot Boundaries 'Closed' the Case at the ECHR

The European Court of Human Rights reminded about the limits of its jurisdiction in cases concerning land disputes, where the proper use of national procedures for protecting property rights is crucial. The ruling in the case of VERLAN v. Republic of Moldova demonstrates that the applicant bears the obligation to ensure proper recording and confirmation of the parameters of their property in state cadastral registers before applying to an international body.

Appealing to the ECHR cannot replace the primary clarification of the factual circumstances of the dispute at the national level, especially when it concerns technical aspects of establishing land plot boundaries. Failure to use available cadastral boundary determination procedures became the decisive factor in declaring the application inadmissible.

Circumstances of Case No. 45396/13

The case concerned the applicant's complaints about the refusal of national courts to protect his property rights to a land plot, which, according to him, was mistakenly included in a land plot registered to another person.

The applicant, a citizen of the Republic of Moldova born in 1978, lives in the village of Pyrytsia. In 2003, he acquired ownership of a residential house with an adjacent land plot and registered the property rights at the territorial cadastral office.

In 2005, ownership documents were issued to another person for a land plot which, according to the applicant, also covered his land. During the large-scale land registration in 2006–2007, this plot was entered into the cadastral geographic database and received a final cadastral number, while the applicant's land plot was not included in this database.

In 2010, the applicant filed a lawsuit with national courts to remove obstacles to the use of the land plot and to oblige the cadastral authority to register his property rights. During the case review, it was established that the boundaries of the applicant's land plot were not defined in the cadastral geographic database, making it impossible to establish the fact of overlapping plots.

By the district court decision dated March 6, 2012, upheld by appellate and cassation courts, the claim was dismissed. The courts noted that the applicant's property rights were not formally disputed, but the absence of established land plot boundaries made it impossible to resolve the dispute over its overlap with another plot.

Due to the refusal of national courts to satisfy his claims and the impossibility, in his opinion, to effectively protect his property rights at the national level, the applicant applied to the ECHR complaining of a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention.

The ECHR Assessment

The ECHR noted that the applicant complained about the erroneous registration of property rights to two land plots and the refusal of national courts to ensure protection of his property rights. The Court emphasized that under Article 35(1) of the Convention, it can only consider an application after the applicant has used available and effective national legal remedies.

The Court noted that national courts and the Government did not dispute the fact that the applicant had property rights to the land plot. However, the applicant did not prove that his land plot was actually overlapped by the one registered in the cadastral geographic database to another person, since his land had no defined boundaries and was not included in that database.

The ECHR agreed with the conclusions of the national courts that to establish possible overlapping of land plots, cadastral work to determine the boundaries of the applicant's land plot was necessary. Such actions, according to national legislation, were the applicant's responsibility. However, he did not use this opportunity and did not initiate the relevant procedure.

Under these circumstances, the Court concluded that the applicant did not exhaust all available national legal remedies that could have remedied the alleged violation, and that the national courts did not interfere with his property rights within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention.

Conclusion

The application was declared inadmissible and rejected. The Chamber's decision in this case was made on December 4, 2025, published on January 15, 2026, and is final.

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