Many people wonder how to check an apartment in the Registry in Ukraine. Even 10-15 years ago, it was quite difficult to do this. But technology does not stand still, and today you can get the necessary information about the apartment, check the owner of the property or get a certificate from the Registry online. For this you will need a computer, phone or other device connected to the Internet.
The electronic service of the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine provides the necessary information. Below we provide detailed step-by-step instructions on how to obtain the necessary information from the State Register of Real Property Rights.
Why might it be necessary to check the apartment according to the Register?
Unfortunately, recently cases of real estate fraud have become more frequent, and there are simply a huge number of such schemes. The most obvious ones are renting out or even selling an apartment that actually has a different owner. Buyers and renters should be careful and check real estate information carefully.
The State Register of Real Property Rights should be visited in the following cases:
- buying an apartment or renting real estate for a long time;
- real estate exchange;
- conclusion of an apartment donation agreement;
- housing privatization;
- registration of inheritance.
Also, experts recommend periodically checking your own apartment in the Registry or getting ready to set a ban on transactions with your real estate.
This is due to the fact that in 2019, Ukrainian law enforcement agencies discovered a group of hackers who were illegally depriving Ukrainians of property rights. Criminals gained access to the registers with the help of officials, whose computers were sent special viruses in letters. To avoid being on the victim list, it’s best to always know what’s going on with your real estate. This will help protect against illegal activities.
It should be noted that the Register contains information on real estate that was purchased or registered at the owner’s initiative after January 1, 2013. If the apartment was registered earlier and is not in the electronic register, then in any case, before concluding the contract, you must ask for documentary confirmation of ownership rights.
Methods of checking the apartment according to registers
In the case of buying real estate on the secondary market, it is recommended to get detailed information about the apartment. For this, it is necessary to order an extract from the Register on the website of the Ministry of Justice. This service is not free, so you will have to pay a small service fee – about 30 hryvnias. To receive a statement, you need to add Opendatabot to the messenger, and then enter the owner’s tax number and select the property you are interested in.
The received statement will contain the following information:
information about real estate and its owner(s);
the form of ownership and the method of confirming the right of ownership (donation contract, sales contract, etc.);
the presence of burdens in the apartment.
The second way to check the owner of the apartment and the real estate itself is to go to the website of the Judicial Authority of Ukraine and go to the section “Status of processing of cases”. After that, you need to indicate the name of the owner of the object you are interested in in the “Party to the case” column. If there are open court cases, this information will be highlighted. This is how you can find out, for example, whether relatives are suing over an apartment inherited by the new owner.
Check the debts for the payment of communal services in the Unified register of debtors. The information appears in the Register if the service provider has already applied to the court and received a court order.
Track the change of property rights. This method is the most difficult, because a potential buyer of an apartment cannot obtain such information on his own. For this, you should contact the state registrar and pay the administrative fee. The obtained information makes it possible to find out how often the owners of the apartment changed and how many there were. If the owners change very often, then this should raise suspicions. There is a possibility of falling into the trap of scammers or simply buying a problematic apartment in which, for one reason or another, no one wants to live.
If you do not want to search for information about real estate and run the risk of communication with fraudsters, you can always buy an apartment with the help of the RIEL Real Estate Corporation. Buying a home or commercial property through a proven company with an impeccable reputation is always the most reliable and safe option.
What other options are there in the Cabinet of electronic services on the website of the Ministry of Justice?
We found out how to check ownership of an apartment in Ukraine. However, other options are available for users in the Cabinet of electronic services. For example, you can write a ban on registration actions with real estate that you are the owner of. Such a ban is valid for 10 days. You can also configure SMS notifications. In this case, if the real estate will be registered, an SMS will be sent to the specified phone number. The cost of such information is 30 hryvnias per month for one real estate object.