For five months, teams of 16 municipalities from 14 oblasts of Ukraine participated in the Support Program “Management of Abandoned Property”. Starting from November 2023, with the support of U-LEAD experts, the participants learned how to manage this type of property, developed and compiled the necessary packages of documents, made arrangements in the council and prepared statements to the court.
In five months, the team of Petrove municipality, Kirovohrad Oblast, achieved a significant result: it received a positive court decision regarding the transfer of the abandoned property — a flat — into municipal ownership in May.
“We are currently preparing this property for a technical inventory and bringing it under municipal property, followed by state registration of the title,” said Vita Maliuta, Chief Specialist of the Land and Municipal Department of the Petrove Settlement Council.
She admitted that, before the Support Program, she and her colleagues had had no experience in managing abandoned property:
“We didn’t understand the specific procedure and had no clue about the format of requests for obtaining evidence about the abandoned status, that is, we were a blank slate. Choosing our municipality for this Training Programme gave us a chance to gain skills for further work.”
According to the specialist, the teamwork allowed the municipality to fully bring the executive orders and other documents regulating the activities of the Petrove Settlement Council aimed at identifying, accounting of abandoned property and bringing it under municipal property into compliance with the effective laws.
Following the Support Program, the municipality continues its efforts in this direction. The inventory is being conducted at a moderate pace. In some cases, the identification and survey of potential properties reveal no grounds for recognising it as abandoned due to lack of legal documents or since the properties are ownerless or the owner is unknown. In this case, bringing these properties under municipal property requires different procedures.
“Starostas and managers of housing and municipal companies take an active part in the identification stage. They have seen that this is a powerful tool for expanding municipal housing and cleaning up these households, which is also very important. After all, the sanitary state of abandoned yards, premises and buildings is usually extremely unsatisfactory,” said Vita Maliuta.
Keep in mind that the status of abandoned property is determined by the court. As was noted by a specialist of the Petrove municipality,
“Bringing a case to court and getting a positive decision is one of the most difficult and lengthy processes. That is why U-LEAD’s Support Program is essential.”
When working with municipalities, U-LEAD experts emphasised that accounting and registration of abandoned property was a chance to turn unused property into an asset that the municipality could dispose of at its own discretion, including social projects, providing housing for internally displaced persons or needed professionals.
“With the support of our experts, the municipality has come a long way, from identifying this type of property to bringing it under municipal property. And this is a great result indeed,” said Vitalii Shvets, Head of the Regional Office of U-LEAD in the Vinnytsia Oblast, who coordinated this Support Program from November to May.