Ministry of Justice: Registration of property rights – the most usual complaint among all registration procedures in Ukraine

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As citizens’ dissatisfaction with property rights registration grows, Justice Ministry transfers function of state registration to local authorities.

Kyiv, May 12, 2016. 75 percent of complaints from citizens of Ukraine concern registration of property rights. It was stated by Andriy Potyomkin, Director of Department on Litigation and Bankruptcy at the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, member of the Commission on complaints on state registration (hereinafter – the Commission), at a press briefing at Ukraine Crisis Media Center. “Only every fourth complaint received by the Commission concerned registration of legal entities, individual entrepreneurs and civic organizations. The rest are related to registration of property rights,” said Mr. Potemkin.

Since January 2016 the Commission has received a total of 488 complaints, 76 percent of them have been considered. 54 complaints have been settled. However, most of the complaints are filed with violation of the law that does not allow considering them properly. Among such violations Potyomkin mentioned absence of date after a signature, requisites, failure to comply with deadlines of submitting a complaint after registrations etc. He also stressed that the Commission’s activities cannot substitute the judiciary power. “The Commission decides only on the lawfulness of the registrar’s actions, completeness of documents submitted for registration, the way they assessed them and what actions they undertook,” noted Mr. Potyomkin.

Pavlo Moroz, Deputy Minister of Justice of Ukraine on state registration, reminded that the Ministry of Justice transferred the state registration functions to other entities – notaries, regional state administrations, regional centers and accreditation entities that have entered into the registers. Currently, 300 village councils have entered into the registers. In general, the number of state registrars has increased 5 times over the last six months. “From May 1, the Ministry of Justice no longer performs registration of business and property rights. This means that currently one can apply to any state registrar without any queues and bribes,” noted the Deputy Minister of Justice.

Pavlo Moroz is convinced that the state registration reform is successful for several reasons. It not only unloaded the Ministry of Justice having deprived it of the registration function which is unusual to the Ministry, but also laid the necessary foundations for the development of a competitive state registration services market. First of all, this will benefit ordinary citizens who have the opportunity to get a quality service.