What to Do If You Found a Lost Item or Money – The Supreme Court Defined the Boundary Between a Find and Theft

In everyday life, there are situations when you might accidentally come across lost items — a wallet, documents, jewelry, or other valuable objects. In such cases, it is important to understand how to act correctly according to the law.

A found item, according to the Civil Code of Ukraine, is property that has left the possession of its owner without their will. Important: the person who found it does not automatically acquire ownership rights.

According to Article 337 of the Civil Code of Ukraine, the found item must be immediately returned to the owner if they can be identified, or the relevant authorities must be notified.

According to lawyers, if the owner of the item cannot be identified, one should:

• Report the find to the National Police via the special line 102 or contact the nearest police patrol or local government authority. This complies with legal requirements.
• Lost and Found Office. A somewhat archaic method but still a helpful way to return lost items or documents, especially if the loss occurred in public transport or administrative buildings. Unfortunately, there is no exhaustive list of lost and found offices, so you should look for them separately in each locality.
• If you found an item inside a building or vehicle, the best option is to hand it over to the owner of the premises or vehicle.
• Publicly searching for the owner through social networks is also allowed.

Rules to follow:

• If possible, do not publish original photos of documents, as this may attract scammers and lead to uncontrolled dissemination of personal data;
• Do not disclose document details (passport series and number, registration address, etc.);
• A good practice is to mention the place where the item was found, what document you found, and the surname and initials of the owner.

You may keep the found property with you or transfer it for safekeeping to the National Police or local government authorities.

Liability and rights of the person who found the item

The person who found the property is liable for its loss or damage only in cases of intent or gross negligence — and only within the value of the item.

The law also provides the right to compensation:

• reimbursement of expenses related to storing or searching for the owner;
• a reward of up to 20% of the item's value if the owner is identified and claims the property.

If the owner publicly promised a reward, it is paid according to those conditions.

At the same time, if the find is concealed, the right to a reward is lost.

When a found item can become your property

Ownership rights to a found item may transfer to the person who found it if within 6 months after notification of the find:

• the owner is not identified;
• the owner does not claim their rights to the item.

In such a case, the property may become the ownership of the territorial community if the finder refuses to receive it.

At the same time, taking possession of property that for any reason ended up in an improper but known place to the owner should be considered theft.

This conclusion was made by the Supreme Court in the ruling dated August 21, 2025, in case No. 688/2554/22.

According to the case circumstances, the accused, while in a store, secretly stole the victim's mobile phone from the counter surface, put it in her bag, and left the store premises.

The defense insisted that the accused did not intend to commit theft, as she considered the phone found on the store shelf a find and intended to return it to the owner for a reward.

The Supreme Court pointed out the correctness of qualifying the convicted person's actions as secret theft of another's property.

By normative definition, theft is the secret taking of property that is knowingly someone else's for the offender, meaning it belongs to another person, and the offender has neither actual nor presumed rights to it.

Taking possession of property that has not actually left the owner's possession but ended up for any reason in an improper but known place (left or forgotten), by a person who knew to whom the property belonged, had grounds to believe where the owner is, and was aware that the owner might return for it, should be considered not as appropriation of a find but as theft of another's property.

If appropriation of property occurs in administrative premises, payment points, and other public places with limited space, in such cases, a presumption of the "forgotten" nature of the item by its owner should be stated: in such cases, the person appropriating the item must understand that the external conditions, environment, and location of the item indicate that it has not actually left the owner's possession but was only left or forgotten by them.

Unlike theft, appropriated property can be considered a find only under conditions that:

a) it left the owner's possession;

b) the owner does not know the location of this property;

c) a long time has passed between the loss and the find, giving the owner grounds to consider the property permanently lost;

d) the person who found the property was not a witness to the loss event and did not take any active actions aimed at removing the property from the owner's possession;

e) there is no possibility to identify the lawful owner of the property.

At the same time, the circumstances established by the courts of previous instances in this criminal proceeding indicated the following facts:

• the object of encroachment was in a place known to the victim, namely in the premises of the "Tsukerochka" store, as evidenced, in particular, by the fact that the victim returned to the premises and actively searched for the lost phone within the store, indicating that the phone, despite being lost by the owner, remained the victim's property, but he could not exercise his right to use or dispose of it due to the unlawful actions of a specific person;
• the real awareness of the person about who the phone owner was, including standing in line behind the victim, the presence of the victim's bank card and passport in the phone, i.e., a specific, not probable person, which provided indisputable grounds to accurately identify the phone's owner and expect that he would return for his belongings and documents.

Moreover, from the content of the circumstances established by the courts of previous instances, it was not evident that the accused informed witnesses about the find and took actions aimed at identifying the phone's owner, but instead put the property in her bag and left the store premises, thereby gaining the real opportunity to dispose of it, due to which the courts of previous instances concluded the presence of intent to commit theft.

The Supreme Court expressed the same legal position in rulings dated July 18, 2019, in case No. 761/31918/14-k (proceeding No. 51-795km19), November 6, 2018, in case No. 127/3792/16-k (proceeding No. 51-51-6601km18), and October 2, 2018, in case No. 686/23920/16-k (proceeding No. 51-5623km18).

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