RESPONSIBILITY OF SUBJECTS OF STATE REGISTRATION OF REAL RIGHTS TO REAL ESTATE

Abstract

The article examines the features of establishing and applying the responsibility of subjects of state registration of real rights to real estate and proposes certain directions for improving its implementation. It is established that subjects of state registration of rights bear civil, administrative, disciplinary and criminal liability in accordance with the Law of Ukraine “On State Registration of Real Rights to Real Estate and Their Encumbrances” for violation of the legislation when entering information into the state register. It is found that the following types of liability are legally defined: 1) civil - damage caused by illegal decisions, actions or inaction of the state registrar is compensated by the state, as well as by business entities or notaries themselves in the order of recourse; 2) administrative - Article 166²³ of the Code of Administrative Offenses establishes liability in the form of a fine for violation of the procedure established by law for registration of rights to real estate; 3) criminal - is established for intentional distortion of register data, illegal registration actions with the aim of causing damage or seizing property (raiding); 4) disciplinary - consists in deprivation of the right to access the State Register of Rights, reprimand or dismissal from office. It has been established that the mechanism of liability of subjects of state registration (state registrars, notaries) for violations in the field of real rights to real estate is based on the provisions of the Law of Ukraine «On State Registration of Real Rights to Real Estate and Their Encumbrances» and provides for the application of disciplinary, administrative, civil or criminal penalties; its constituent elements are: recording of the violation - carried out by law enforcement agencies or upon complaints to the Commission for Consideration of Complaints in the Field of State Registration under the Ministry of Justice; cancellation of illegal actions - making registration changes or returning property to its previous state through mechanisms of judicial appeal or cancellation of decisions by commissions of the Ministry of Justice; compensation for damages - is implemented through lawsuits against the state registrar or business entity (notary office/accreditation entity). It has been proven that the problems of holding subjects of state registration of real estate rights accountable in Ukraine are associated with the imperfection of the legislation, the difficulty of proving the guilt of registrars, the problems of compensating for the losses caused and the ambiguity of judicial practice regarding the cancellation of illegal registration actions. The main ones include: the difficulty of proving guilt and intent - registrars often refer to the fact that they check only the formal presence of the submitted documents, and not their initial forgery or the authenticity of the parties’ will, which complicates their criminal or civil liability; the complexity of compensation for damage - according to the Law on State Registration, damage is compensated only by a court decision, but the actual recovery of funds from a state or municipal registrar is a long and inefficient process due to their low official solvency; dualism of the status of subjects - the liability of private notaries and accredited subjects differs from the liability of civil servants or local government officials, which creates unequal conditions and dilutes uniform standards of punishment for violations; imperfection of recourse mechanisms - the state, having paid compensation for the illegal decisions of its registrars, often cannot effectively recover these funds in a recourse procedure due to gaps in labor and budget discipline; there are conflicts of case law regarding the cancellation of records - courts do not always clearly distinguish between requirements for the cancellation of the registrar’s illegal decision itself and the protection of the civil property rights of the injured person, which delays the restoration of the rights of the owners.