On 14 November 2019, the Draft Law No 2194 “On Introducing Amendments to the Land Code of Ukraine and Other Laws of Ukraine Regarding the Improvement of the System of Administration and Deregulation in the Sphere of Land Relations” (the “Draft Law”) passed in first reading by the Ukrainian Parliament. The Draft Law is a part of raft of the draft laws regarding the land reform in Ukraine that is not limited to just cancellation of the moratorium on the sale of the agricultural land. The Draft Law contains provisions aimed at the abrogation of corruption in land relations.
The Draft Law’s key provisions are as follows:
- The State Service of Ukraine for Geodesy, Cartography and Cadastre will be deprived of most functions concerning control in the land relations; instead it should become the service state body which will maintain the State Land Cadaster and will integrate different information systems;
- the procedure of obtaining the property rights on land for foreigners and foreign companies will be simplified – the foreigners will be able to acquire the ownership title for non-agricultural land outside the inhabited localities; the foreign legal entities will have the right to acquire in ownership non-agricultural land on the same rules as the legal entities incorporated under the Laws of Ukraine; in order to acquire the state or communal land foreign companies will no more have to obtain the consent of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine;
- the lessee of the land plot will have the preemptive right to buy the leased land even if the land is selling at the auction; in order to exercise this right the lessee will have to pay the price under which the land is selling, or if it is selling on the auction, the lessee can acquire it under the price which the auction’s winner is going to pay;
- if the person or legal entity, who can not own the agricultural land, will obtain the ownership title for it, this person or legal entity will have to sell it within a year; banks and other financial institutions will also have to sell the agricultural land if they acquire it under foreclosure procedure; if these individuals or entities fail to follow this rule the state body, which exercise control under usage and protection of land, will file the respective lawsuit in the court; the same procedure will apply to the individuals and legal entities who exceed the maximum area of agricultural land that could be acquired by one owner (and affiliated persons) with exception that the respective lawsuit will be submitted to the court by the Antimonopoly Committee of Ukraine;
- the area of state or municipal agricultural land plot which will be selling on the auction could not surpass 20 ha;
- the procedure of development and approval of land survey projects will be much simplified as there will be no more of state land survey expertise of such a projects and no more of obtaining consents of different state bodies; instead of the state land survey expertise the land survey project will be reviewed by critic upon the request of the person (legal entity) who ordered the project;
- the land survey projects will become public and generally available information;
- the land survey projects will be developed electronically;
- the state control under the performers of the surveying and cartographic works will be substituted by the obligatory insurance of their responsibility before third parties;
- all state land plots will pass into the ownership of municipal authorities with some exceptions (like land plots under the state companies, military land etc);
- citizens who have the right of perpetual use of state agricultural land plots and the lessees of such land plots, which acquired the lease right on the basis of the right of perpetual use, will have the right to buy this land on five years instalment plan without auction.
Those are only key provisions of the Draft Law. There are some other norms oriented at the minimization of corruption risks in the land sphere. If the Draft Law will become effective, there will be a lot of positive changes and simplification of doing business in Ukraine especially for foreign investors.