A Ukrainian Woman Was Deprived of 28 Hectares of Land Without Any Compensation Due to Violations During Privatization: What the ECHR Decided

Depriving a person of ownership of property acquired on the basis of valid title documents, even if the initial removal of such property from state ownership occurred with violations, must comply with the requirements of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The practice of the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) holds that state interference with the right to peaceful enjoyment of property must be lawful, pursue a legitimate aim, and ensure a fair balance between the public interest and the rights of the individual.

In the case of KOSMATSKA v. Ukraine, the ECHR examined a situation where a bona fide purchaser of a land plot was deprived of ownership due to the return of the land to state ownership because of violations committed during its initial privatization by third parties. The Court concluded that imposing negative consequences on the applicant for errors and possible abuses she did not commit or participate in, without providing any compensation, violated her right to peaceful enjoyment of property.

Circumstances of Case No. 9953/16

The case concerned the deprivation of the applicant's land plot, which she purchased from private individuals, as a result of court decisions that satisfied the prosecutor's claim to return the land to the State.

By several decisions adopted in April 2008, the Borodyanka District State Administration of Kyiv Region allocated land plots of 2 hectares each through privatization among 109 persons for farming purposes. The land was located near the village of Maidanivka.

In July 2008, the respective persons obtained ownership rights to the land. In October 2008, 14 persons sold their land plots to the applicant, who two months later received documents confirming ownership of the combined land plot of 28 hectares. Copies of the sale contracts were not submitted to the court. The applicant claimed she paid a total of 3,029,145 Ukrainian hryvnias (approximately 436,000 euros at the time).

In 2008, the local prosecutor conducted an investigation into the distribution of the disputed land. The court was not provided with materials of this investigation, but other documents in the case established that some persons allocated land never applied to the Borodyanka District State Administration regarding privatization or lost their passports and/or other identity documents around the same period. These facts indicated the possibility that third parties, acting in their own interests, might have exploited the situation.

On October 21, 2010, following the prosecutor's claim based on the investigation results, the Kyiv Administrative Court of Appeal annulled the 2008 decisions of the Borodyanka District State Administration on land allocation. The court essentially relied on the prosecutor's findings. The decision stated that "some" of the 109 persons never submitted applications for land privatization but did not specify who these persons were, how many did not apply, or whether this situation required annulment of all the contested decisions in full. The decision was not appealed and became final. Interested parties did not participate in these proceedings.

In November 2013, the prosecutor conducted another investigation regarding the land allocation by the Borodyanka District State Administration and its subsequent transfer to the applicant. The investigation order noted that it was necessary because "during the initial examination and court proceedings it was not established that ownership documents were issued to the involved private persons," and because after the annulment of the 2008 decisions, the respective land plots were not returned to the Maidanivka village council. This indicated possible further violations of land legislation.

Available documents also showed that in December 2013 a criminal case was opened concerning the distribution of the mentioned land plots, qualified as fraud. The court was not provided with any materials regarding the results of the 2013 investigation or the criminal case (including whether anyone was suspected or charged and what the outcome was).

In April 2014, the prosecutor filed a case against the applicant to invalidate her ownership rights to the 28-hectare land plot and return the land to the State. He referred, inter alia, to Articles 387 and 388 of the Civil Code and previous proceedings that led to the annulment of the Borodyanka District State Administration's 2008 decisions.

The prosecutor's claims were upheld by courts of three levels of jurisdiction, with the final decision issued by the High Specialized Court of Ukraine for Civil and Criminal Cases (HSCU) on August 12, 2015. The courts essentially found that previous proceedings, which resulted in the annulment of the 2008 decisions and invalidation of the primary owners' rights, showed that the land was illegally removed from State possession and could be returned under Articles 387 and 388(3) of the Civil Code of Ukraine. The courts also rejected the applicant's statute of limitations arguments as unfounded, considering that the prosecutor only learned of the illegality of the land acquisition in 2013 following the second investigation.

The applicant complained of a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention concerning the deprivation of her property, which she claimed was unlawful and disproportionate as she received no compensation. She also complained that national courts did not apply the statute of limitations to the prosecutor's claim against her.

ECHR Assessment

The Court considered that there was interference with the applicant's property, given that her ownership was invalidated by a final court decision. The fact that she apparently remained registered as the owner of the disputed land does not affect this conclusion, as such registration without proper legal basis cannot be considered as conferring any property rights. Whether such interference is regarded as deprivation or control over property use, the applicable principles remain the same (e.g., Ünşped Paket Servisi San. Ve Tic. A.Ş. v. Bulgaria, no. 3503/08, §§ 39-40, 13 October 2015, and Kryvenkyy v. Ukraine, no. 43768/07, §§ 41-42 and 45, 16 February 2017).

Regarding legality, the Court noted that when filing the claim in 2014, the prosecutor referred to Articles 387 and 388 of the Civil Code of Ukraine without specifying particular paragraphs. In their decisions, national courts referred to Article 387 and specifically paragraph 3 of part one of Article 388 as grounds for satisfying the prosecutor's claim to invalidate the applicant's ownership rights.

Regarding the first norm, concerning cases of unlawful acquisition of ownership, the Court noted that undoubtedly the applicant acquired the land based on several sale contracts and registered her ownership of the combined land plot with competent authorities. The Court takes into account the particular situation related to the applicant's acquisition, as she acquired a significant number of smaller land plots in the same area around the same time and later combined them into several larger plots. Although, according to the prosecutor's version, some primary owners never applied to authorities for land privatization and third parties acted fraudulently representing their interests, in the absence of a competent national court's conclusion or other convincing information and documents, the Court cannot speculate whether the applicant should have been aware of the relevant violations when acquiring the disputed land. Moreover, at no time did the relevant national authorities consider that the applicant acted mala fide or could have been involved in any wrongdoing. In this regard, the Court refers to the Supreme Court's findings in case No. 360/625/16-ts concerning other land plots, according to which the applicant had no connection to the illegality of the initial land distribution in 2008. The Government also did not indicate that the applicant was in any way involved in the situation related to the land distribution. Given these facts, it appears that the grounds for applying Article 387 of the Civil Code in this case were clearly absent.

Regarding part 1 paragraph 3 of Article 388 of the Civil Code, concerning the return of property from a bona fide acquirer who received it gratuitously from a person not entitled to dispose of it, the Court agreed with the applicant's argument that its application was also clearly doubtful, as she clearly purchased the land under sale contracts, i.e., not gratuitously as provided by this norm. No other parts of this article that could serve as grounds for invalidating the applicant's ownership were mentioned by national courts.

In this regard, the Court also noted that during national proceedings the applicant argued that none of the grounds for termination of ownership listed exhaustively in Article 140 of the Land Code of Ukraine applied in her case.

Regarding the legitimate aim, it is beyond doubt that restoring the State's ownership rights to illegally alienated land can be a justified ground for deprivation of ownership, and proper land management serving the interests of society and the local community is an aim corresponding to the public interest within the meaning of the second paragraph of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention.

Regarding proportionality, the Court emphasized that Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 requires any interference to be proportionate between the means employed and the aim pursued. In this connection, the Court notes the Government's argument that the applicant could have filed a claim against the sellers of the property under the Civil Code provisions concerning invalidity of transactions to recover the money she paid.

In this regard, the Court noted that if required by national law, applicants may be obliged either to initiate separate proceedings to obtain compensation for property lost due to administrative errors or to demonstrate that there was an obstacle preventing them from filing justified claims or having them satisfied.

Based on the above, the Court did not consider it justified, considering the necessary proportionality of the interference and the need to maintain a fair balance between the interests at stake, to require the applicant to file a claim against the primary owners of the land to obtain compensation. It follows that the interference with the applicant's property rights cannot be considered a proportionate measure.

The ECHR found in this case that invalidating the applicant's ownership of 28 hectares of land without compensation was a disproportionate measure. Therefore, it found a direct causal link between the established violation and the applicant's claim for compensation for the value of the property.

In view of the above, the Court concluded that the interference with the applicant's property rights, besides raising doubts about its legality, imposed a disproportionate burden on her. Accordingly, there was a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention.

Conclusions

Violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention (protection of property). The decision in this case was adopted by the Chamber on December 4, 2025, and will become final pursuant to Article 44(2) of the Convention.

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