What the law says
The first law regulating the sale of common real estate appeared 6-7 years ago. Its appearance is associated with fraudulent sales and deception of owners. Since 2015, changes have been made to it. According to them, all transactions with shared ownership were carried out with the consent of a notary service employee. The same rule applies in 2017: “all transactions for the purchase and sale of shared ownership are carried out only with the participation of a notary.” The implementation of this law is aimed at combating fraudulent activities.
The owner, before selling, offers it to other owners. If other owners do not want to buy the seller's share, then he can sell it to a third party. But this law also has its own nuances, which are actively used by people who want to make more profit. For example, according to the law, the owner has the right to donate part of his share. It can be even 1 sq.m. Such a gift costs a penny. The owner has the right to sell the rest of the property. Previously, such a deal was considered not only profitable, but also very profitable. Most often, it was agreed to by citizens who had a share in a multi-room house with other owners with whom it was impossible to reach an agreement. It is currently impossible to make such a donation. Now any transactions with shared ownership are carried out only through a notary service employee. He can reveal the fact of a false gift of a share in the property, which hides the fact of its sale to an outsider. Also, for conducting the transaction, the notary will need to pay 0.5% of the total value of the property, or about 20,000 rubles.
Svetlana Zhukova, head of the central department of city real estate of NDV, answers:
The fact is that the owners of shares have a priority right of redemption in the event that one of the owners intends to sell his share. Before purchasing an apartment that is in common shared ownership, the first thing you need to do is make sure that the other owners have refused to purchase and that they have been notified of the sale of one of the shares of the apartment and its value. If there are documented purchase refusals or notices of sale, you can proceed with the transaction (otherwise it may be challenged).
It is also worth remembering that not all banks approve a mortgage for shares and few approve a mortgage for the last share in an apartment (if shares that make up 100% of the apartment are purchased, then this does not matter).
Transactions involving property that is in common shared ownership are subject to mandatory notary support.
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How to identify a share in property
According to Article No. 244 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation: “real estate that belongs to two or more owners and is common property is called a share.”
Owners can each have their own share in the property, and then it is called shared ownership.
If the owners do not divide the property into shares, then it is called joint property.
Other articles of the civil code describe in more detail how property that is shared ownership is divided, how a share is allocated from it, how it can be owned and used, and how to sell it.
According to statistics, about 80% of city real estate in St. Petersburg is common property.
The property located in a historical building, in a communal apartment in St. Petersburg, is now divided into shares.
Also, the real estate located in the new residential complex is now divided into shares. This happens when a young family bought property and gets divorced, or an older person had property that was divided between his heirs after his death.
Most often, shared ownership appears in property that was previously privatized.
In rare cases, real estate is divided into inherited shares, as well as those shares that appeared during the division of common property between spouses.
Checking the size of the share in ownership
The size of the owner's share can be found out without his knowledge. It's completely legal and simple.
For such a check, you need to order an extract from the Unified State Register of Real Estate about the property - the Unified State Register of Real Estate.
In section 2 “Information on registered rights” in the column “Type, number and date of state registration of the right” the specific size of the share in the right will be indicated.
Also, shares in ownership will be indicated if you order an extract from the Unified State Register of Rights on the transfer of rights. In addition, this document will indicate all previous owners, if any.
Why do you need shares in real estate?
Lawyers note that the following categories of citizens buy shares.
This:
- Nonresident citizens. They buy a share for registration and solving other problems: registration, obtaining a mortgage, employment.
- Buyers of a share who will actually live in it. Typically, such shares are purchased by those citizens who do not have the funds to buy an entire room in a communal apartment or rent a room.
- Professional realtors. They buy a share in order to then buy out all the shares and sell the apartment at a more favorable price for themselves or allocate a certain share and determine the procedure for its use.
What should a rejected co-owner do (three options for solving the problem)
If the owners of the shares were unable to come to a common decision, then the story can develop according to one of three scenarios, and in all of them the co-owner living in the apartment continues to live in it, but the actions of the expelled co-owner may be different. He can “spit and forget”, or move in through the court (described in method 3), or transfer his share to the party. People are reluctant to buy shares of apartments, however, there is some demand for them.
Elena Nikolaeva
managing partner
A person buys a share in an apartment in three cases. Someone buys a share for their residence. He hopes that he will be able to agree with other co-owners on joint use of housing. This is a rather risky option, but sometimes it is done. The second case is when a share is purchased to obtain permanent registration. The share may be small, for example, one hundredth of an apartment. And finally, there are professional raiders. They buy shares in the apartment in order to impose their conditions on the old co-owner - most often to force them to sell the shares.
As realtors note, if a person is ready to buy part of an apartment specifically for living, then it would be more correct to buy not a share in the apartment, but a room in a communal apartment or dormitory. In this case, the rights of residents are more clearly defined. However, there are examples where share buyers coexist quite peacefully with their flatmates. However, there are also examples of a different kind - namely, when a share in an apartment is purchased with the aim of bringing the intensity of passions to the limit and making a profit from it, or simply buying the share of the unfortunate co-owner on the cheap.
Natalia Mikhailyukova
lawyer of the Russian Guild of Realtors
Some time ago in Yekaterinburg, a man who purposefully oppressed his co-owners in an apartment received a real prison sentence. He became rowdy, smeared creosote on the doors, and even became physically violent. But I’ll say right away that this case is rather an exception. It is very difficult to find justice for an aggressive co-owner. In the case described, the case went to court because the man had shares in several apartments and in all of them he tried to survive his neighbors. Moreover, these were not only grandparents, but also quite socially adapted people. They managed to contact each other and contacted the prosecutor's office. The court took into account that the rowdy had shares in different apartments, and he deliberately did not consolidate them - he did not change them into one apartment.
1. Sell
Previously, the METRTV.ru portal spoke in detail about the rules of conduct for owners of apartment shares, and also described the intricacies of the procedure for selling a share in ownership. Sales practices have changed a bit lately. Selling a share has become easier.
Vlada Pavlova
real estate specialist at Link Academy of Sciences
By law, a co-owner who sells a share “outside” is obliged to offer to buy it to other co-owners of the apartment. Other co-owners, if they are not ready to buy out the share, write a refusal to purchase. If they are far away or do not make contact, you can send them telegrams with an offer to sell. Then the co-owners will not be able to later declare that their right to buy out the share has been violated and cancel the deal through the court. Previously, the practice was that telegrams had to be sent to the registration addresses of co-owners. These addresses may not be known to the person selling the share. Now it is enough to send telegrams to the address of the apartment in which the share is for sale. The court today reasons like this: if you have property, then you must take care of it, at least check the mail.
You can place an advertisement for the sale of a share in an apartment in the “apartment sales” section of the METRTV.ru portal. It is important not to forget to indicate the size of the share being sold in the appropriate field.
2. Give
Often, a gift agreement is used to alienate a share in an apartment. In this case, the consent of the co-owners is not required. If a sale was disguised as a donation, then the transaction can be challenged in court, but in practice it is almost impossible to prove that it was a sale and not a donation.
Yulia Balay
director of the office of the Academy of Sciences "Novosel"
A relatively recent case: a woman with a child and her brother, the owner of one third share of the property, lived in an apartment. Without informing his relatives, he transferred his share through a gift deed. The woman tried to challenge the deal in the Ordzhonikidze court, but there the deal was not recognized as a sham. The judge demanded evidence of the transfer of money. Of course, there was no evidence.
However, even if the court found the transaction carried out through a donation to be feigned, this does not mean that the share will be taken away from the new owner. The court will transfer the buyer's rights to the co-owner who challenged the transaction, but if the co-owner does not buy out this share, it will remain with the “third-party” owner.
3. Pay for debts
And finally, the third way to alienate shared property is through a compensation agreement. The owner of the share enters into a loan agreement with the buyer for the amount for which he plans to sell the share. A share is issued as collateral for the loan. After registering the collateral with Rosreestr and the owner receiving money from the lender (buyer), a compensation agreement is drawn up, according to which the lender forgives the debt and receives the collateral in return - that is, a share of the apartment.
Natalia Mikhailyukova
lawyer of the Russian Guild of Realtors
Shares in apartments are now rarely alienated through compensation. It’s easier to do this through regular purchase and sale. However, transactions with parking spaces are often carried out according to this scheme. Such a place is a share in the ownership of the entire parking lot. And all co-owners must be sent an offer to purchase a share. There was a case where a person selling a parking space sent out 255 telegrams, and it turned out that 8 co-owners live in countries with which there is no telegraph communication. As a result, the deal was carried out through a loan agreement and compensation.
How is the procedure for using shares determined?
The process of determining the procedure for using shares is linking the share to one of the rooms in an apartment building.
In St. Petersburg, shares are issued in fractional numbers: ½, 1/3, 2/5.
It is not easy to determine which room in a multi-room house corresponds exactly to the owner’s share. This can be done by the owners themselves through an agreement drawn up and recorded by a notary or through the court.
Remember that the owner receives the entire room only when the size of his share corresponds to the size of the property. For example, if the owner’s property area is 15 sq.m., and the house has three rooms with an area of 10 sq.m., 16 sq.m., 20 sq.m., then the judge gives the owner a room equal to 10 sq.m.
How much does a share in a private house cost?
In 2014, the government developed Federal Law No. 376, which prevents the emergence of “rubber apartments”. Therefore, in St. Petersburg there is now a law that a person who has a room of at least 4 sq.m. can obtain a residence permit. in general real estate. This leads to an increase in the size of the share and its price. Therefore, now rooms are smaller than 4 sq.m. are not in demand among buyers. In St. Petersburg they cost about 50,000 rubles, but there are also no buyers for them.
The shares that people buy for registration also now have an area of slightly more than 4 square meters and they cost about 200,000 rubles.
Much more expensive are those shares in multi-room houses where a person can actually live, but he does not have one specific room in the house. For example, if he bought a share in a one-room house.
If a person acquires a share in a house, where it is possible to determine the order of use, i.e. it has one room, then the cost of such a share is 50-70% of the total cost of the property.
Apartment shares. Please tell me
Finally, the most unpleasant “but”. Owners of shares are required to coordinate with other co-owners any action related to the disposal of property. Selling an apartment or registering a relative will one way or another require the consent of the residents. Without the approval of the participants, it is impossible to even carry out repairs or install air conditioning. It is this lack of freedom that leads to numerous lawsuits.
The division of shares requires a preliminary establishment of the total area of the living space, which will consist of both residential rooms and utility rooms. Based on the obtained value, the owners can begin the process of distributing shares in proportion to the number of owners.
In addition, some buyers are trying to save money and buy housing together with friends or close relatives. There are many ways, but the result is the same - this is how common shared property arises, which belongs to several persons at once.
The court decides such cases on a case-by-case basis. The court may recognize 1/4 share as insignificant and not recognize 1/6 share as insignificant. It depends on who the owner of this share is, whether he has other housing. How important is it for him to use this share here in the apartment?
Thank you Galina, I wanted to know, they write on all sites that it is legally stipulated that a minor share should be less than 1/4 of the share and less than the smallest room.
Even if the guardianship council allows the child to be discharged to another home, the transaction may still be subsequently declared invalid. Therefore, it is better not to take risks and include the child in privatization.
DD, tell me, there is a 4-room apartment, the cost, I think, is 4 million. One of the heirs will receive 1/8 share, i.e. 9 sq.m. What can he do with his share? If he sells, gives as a gift, or wants to live on his own, then how? After all, with common areas, he will only have half of the smallest room to live in.
We start from reality! No 500,000, wait for me to be your roommate! Or who is weirder! Kindergarten... The person legally owns a share... Sell yours to him! Or for me for 2,000,000! Go to the village yourself, into the fresh air! Buy a house there for 2,000,000...
