The Deputy Prosecutor General of Russia appealed to the Tuapse District Court with a statement of claim against 45 defendants on the termination of lease agreements for 46 land plots and the dismantling of 157 construction projects. Recreation centers, guest houses, as well as commercial facilities and private buildings have been built on the disputed sites in Shepsi. According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, the local administration did not have the authority to conclude lease agreements with legal entities. According to lawyers, taking into account court decisions in similar disputes with tea producers in Sochi, it will be difficult for tenants in Shepsi to win their case.
Deputy Prosecutor General of Russia Igor Tkachev filed a lawsuit with the Tuapse District Court of the Krasnodar Territory to terminate 46 land lease agreements in Shepsi. The plaintiff also demands the dismantling of 157 capital and non-capital construction projects in the disputed territories. The defendants in the case are 43 legal entities, as well as the administration of the Tuapse district and the administration of the Shepsinsky rural settlement.
As follows from the statement of claim of the Prosecutor General’s Office (a copy is at the disposal of Kommersant-Kuban), in 2015 CJSC Boarding House Shepsi illegally split a land plot with a total area of 47.2 hectares into 46 plots, after which they were leased to third parties. persons for construction.
According to the SPARK-Interfax system, Shepsy Boarding House JSC was registered in 1992 in the Tuapse district. The main profile of the company is the activity of sanatorium organizations. Elena Kustova is the CEO of the company. JSC revenue for 2022 amounted to 127.3 million rubles, profit – 6.1 million rubles.
The lawsuit states that the administration of the Shepsinsky rural settlement in 2015, by its decision, unlawfully changed the category of plots from “lands of specially protected territories and objects” to “lands of settlements”. Meanwhile, as the Prosecutor General’s Office points out, the transfer of disputed lands from one category to another is carried out by the executive authorities of the constituent entities of Russia. In the same year, the administration of the Tuapse district entered into lease agreements with 43 legal entities.
The audit showed that eighteen of the disputed sites are capital construction facilities, nineteen – non-capital facilities, nine – capital and non-capital. In total, 48 construction objects with signs of capital and 109 non-capital objects are located on the lands.
The buildings were erected in a short time after the transfer of the right of lease from CJSC “Pension “Shepsy””. According to the Prosecutor General’s Office, this indicates that the goal of the tenants was “uncontrolled development of land plots, and local governments assisted them in this.” All transactions for the transfer and lease of 46 land plots, the Prosecutor General’s Office considers “imaginary.”
The tenants had no intentions to use the plots for their intended purpose or to preserve the natural healing resources of the properties of the land, the supervisory authority notes. “Local authorities did not exercise control over the use of land, bringing tenants to responsibility for their misuse was not initiated. Moreover, favorable conditions were created for the defendants for targeted development of plots not provided for by law, ”the statement of claim says.
Chaotic development, according to the plaintiff, has destroyed the resort and recreational potential of the area. The audit showed that almost all disputed areas are located in the water protection zone of the river, and some of the areas are within the boundaries of flooding.
The Prosecutor General’s Office asks the court to recognize lease agreements as void transactions, and construction projects as unauthorized buildings. The plaintiff also requires tenants to demolish all illegal objects at their own expense within thirty days from the date of entry into force of the court decision.
It was not possible to get a comment from the officials of the Shepsinsky rural settlement: the Kommersant-Kuban correspondent did not answer phone calls to the numbers indicated in open sources.
The General Prosecutor’s Office of Russia believes that the purpose of the tenants of land plots removed from the boarding house “Shepsi” was “uncontrolled development” of a previously specially protected area, and local authorities allegedly assisted them in this.
This is the second lawsuit filed by the Prosecutor General’s Office against tenants of plots in Shepsi. The first application was received by the Tuapse District Court on April 17, 2023 in respect of 23 land plots. In the lawsuit, the Prosecutor General’s Office asked to recognize all the concluded lease agreements as invalid due to the fact that only the department of property relations of the Krasnodar Territory, but not the administration of the Tuapse district, had the right to conclude them.
Lawyer Viktor Levshakov points out that, despite such a large number of defendants (28) and the volume of the case (30 volumes), the claim was considered as soon as possible. “The decision was made within a month. The claims of the Prosecutor General’s Office were fully satisfied, and the lease agreements were declared null and void. The land was taken away from people,” says Mr. Levshakov.
The lawyer added that the consequence of the nullity of the lease agreements will be the return of all rental payments from the budget of the Tuapse district, as well as compensation for the demolition of objects. Real estate, Viktor Levshakov noted, was built on the basis of building permits issued by the administration of the Tuapse district. From 2015 to 2023, the budget of the Tuapse district received more than 130 million rubles from lease payments.
According to Vasily Malinin, a partner at the law firm Rustam Kurmaev & Partners, the chances of tenants to win the case are complicated by the ongoing practice in the Krasnodar Territory of contesting land lease agreements by the Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia and withdrawing these lands into state ownership.
“Just recently, the Krasnodar Regional Court recognized as lawful a similar decision of the court of first instance on challenging land lease agreements by farms and tea producers. In this case, if we take into account the specifics of the litigation involving the Prosecutor General’s Office, it will be extremely difficult to change the decision of the court of first instance in higher instances, ”the lawyer noted.
According to Roman Domashchenko, managing partner of the Domashchenko & Partners law firm, the prosecution’s arguments boil down to the fact that the land plots have the status of “specially protected”, they are located in the zone of the sanitary protection district, as well as on the coastline, in connection with which the construction capital facilities are prohibited. The subsequent change in the type of permitted use of land plots on the basis of decisions of local governments could not cancel the special status of such lands and was carried out in violation of the requirements of the law.
“Analyzing the latest initiatives and directions of inspections, we can conclude that the prosecution authorities are currently inspecting the territory of the entire sea coast of the Krasnodar Territory for compliance with land legislation and, in case of violations, take measures aimed at eliminating them. There has been a tendency to file similar lawsuits, in addition to Sochi and the Tuapse region, also in the Gelendzhik and Anapa regions,” Roman Domashchenko believes.