Part of Your Land Plot "Ended Up" with a Neighbor: The Supreme Court Named the Correct Way to Protect

If the property right of a land plot owner is violated due to partial overlapping of land plots, effective protection cannot be achieved solely by demands to cancel the state registration of the land plot, cadastral number, or to invalidate the alienation agreement. In such categories of disputes, the proper way of protection is a vindicatory claim for the recovery of the overlapping part of the land plot. This conclusion was made by the Civil Cassation Court of the Supreme Court, applying the legal position of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court formulated in the ruling dated January 22, 2025, in case No. 446/478/19.

Case circumstances

The plaintiff acquired private ownership of land plots back in 2002. In 2024, she applied for the preparation of technical documentation, assignment of cadastral numbers, and entry of information into the State Land Cadastre. During the registration of one of the land plots, the state cadastral registrar refused to enter the information because it was established that 42.3432% of its area overlaps with another land plot that already has a cadastral number and is in private ownership.

The plaintiff believed that such overlapping arose due to an error during the formation of the neighboring land plot in 2019, since her ownership right originated back in 2002.

After unsuccessful attempts to resolve the dispute with the owner of the neighboring plot, she learned that he had already gifted it to another person. Therefore, the plaintiff filed a lawsuit demanding to invalidate the gift agreement, cancel the ownership right of the new owner, the state registration of the land plot, the cadastral number, and to close the Land Book.

What the courts decided

The court of first instance satisfied the claim. It concluded that during the formation of the defendant’s land plot, the plaintiff’s land plot was not taken into account, and therefore the gift agreement and other consequences of state registration should be canceled.

However, the Kyiv Court of Appeal overturned this decision and denied the claim, noting that the plaintiff chose an improper method of protection.

Position of the Civil Cassation Court

The Civil Cassation Court agreed with the conclusions of the appellate instance and left its ruling unchanged.

The court emphasized that in disputes where a person’s right is violated due to partial overlapping of land plots, the proper method of protection is a vindicatory claim for the recovery of the overlapping part of the land plot. This method of protection, according to the legal position of the Grand Chamber of the Supreme Court, ensures effective restoration of the violated right. In contrast, demands to cancel the state registration of the land plot, cadastral number, invalidate decisions of local self-government bodies, or alienation agreements by themselves are not proper methods of protection in such categories of disputes.

The Supreme Court noted that a decision on the recovery of immovable property is an independent basis for state registration of ownership rights in favor of the plaintiff in the State Register of Property Rights. Therefore, there is no need to separately demand the cancellation of entries on the state registration of ownership rights in favor of the defendant.

The court also stressed that invalidating the legal title to the entire land plot is not a proper method of protection if the dispute concerns only a part of it. In such cases, the specific part of the land plot that overlaps must be identified, and only it can be the subject of the vindicatory claim. This approach ensures compliance with the principle of proportionality and prevents interference with ownership rights regarding the part of the land plot that is not subject to dispute.

Since the plaintiff filed claims to cancel the state registration of the land plot, cadastral number, and to invalidate the gift agreement but did not file a vindicatory claim for the recovery of the overlapping part of the land plot, the appellate court reasonably denied the claim due to the choice of an improper method of protection. The Civil Cassation Court agreed with this conclusion.

Why the Court did not agree with the arguments about the invalidity of the gift agreement

The plaintiff argued that the gift agreement was concluded after her appeals to the land plot owner and therefore is null or fraudulent.

The Civil Cassation Court rejected these arguments.

The court noted that there were no grounds to qualify the agreement as violating public order, and therefore it is not null within the meaning of Article 228 of the Civil Code of Ukraine.

Also, the Supreme Court in case No. 372/4480/24 emphasized that the concept of a fraudulent transaction (actio Pauliana) is aimed at protecting creditor rights from debtor actions intended to avoid obligations or create advantages for other creditors. In this case, the plaintiff was not a creditor of the defendants, so there were no grounds for applying this institution. The mere fact of concluding a gift agreement after the dispute arose does not indicate its fraudulent nature.

In conclusion, the Supreme Court dismissed the cassation appeal and left the ruling of the Kyiv Court of Appeal unchanged.

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