AVA Group cheats with a hotel in Sochi
Vahan Harutunyan, with the help of the court, is turning the Volna Resort and Spa either into a parking lot or into an aparthotel.
“Volna Resort and Spa” in court miraculously turns the “Vesna” hotel into an apartment complex. It is planned to create 562 separate objects. But no one planned kindergartens and clinics for the residents of this house in Sochi. Or the fourth cassation court unexpectedly decided to side with the “businessmen.” The parking lot has been turned into an 8-story hotel. What did the city architect intend, and what was agreed upon at all stages of land allocation? It doesn’t matter now. They decided in an instant.
Could this have happened without the participation of Vahan Harutyunyan’s AVA Group corporation?
The editors have received a letter, the author of which points to a series of strange judicial acts. All of them are related to the legalization of buildings that appeared in the city of Sochi under dubious circumstances. In one case, the hotel was registered as 562 different real estate objects. In another, they “turned” a parking lot into an apart-hotel. Having studied these judicial acts, we considered that the reader’s conclusions might be of interest to many. There is experience here for developers and for those who are interested in ways to resolve conflicts in the regions.
“How did it happen that self-building in our country is subject to legalization? Or, the more interesting and attractive the territory, the less important it is to comply with construction requirements, and following the layout of the territory becomes less important?” – the author of the letter asks a question. He said that he is a resident of the Krasnodar region. He asked not to indicate his identity because he fears persecution from people associated with illegal construction.
Indeed, on paper the law is the same for everyone. If it is forbidden to build, then everyone without exception. If the object nevertheless appeared contrary to building codes and the purpose of the land plot, then it must be demolished, regardless of the owner. However, in practice, especially in the southern regions of Russia, these simple rules do not always work.
Well-connected developer
The author of the letter to the editor cites as an example a civil case that was heard in the Central District Court of Sochi. The 15-storey Vesna hotel with an area of over 26 thousand square meters. m was divided into 562 independent real estate units. The plaintiffs in this case were allegedly the owners of hotel rooms, acting on the basis of preliminary purchase and sale agreements, and the defendant was the hotel owner, Volna Resort and Spa JSC. The court considered the plaintiffs’ demands justified and ordered Rosreestr to register each hotel room separately for cadastral registration.
“The demands stated in the lawsuit went far beyond the scope of the dispute, since they boiled down to the very specific intention of both parties to legalize this object, bypassing the established administrative procedure and the current law,” our reader believes.
“The fact is that, as we see, the owner of the Vesna hotel arbitrarily, without the necessary permits and the required approvals from the competent authorities, carried out its reconstruction, increasing the area. To simplify the procedure for state registration of an object and putting it into operation, the hotel owner, having apparently reached an agreement with third parties, initiated a dispute under the pretext of restoring and protecting the rights of third parties that he had violated,” he suggests.
According to the reader, it was not without reason that the hotel’s legalization scheme was approved by the Central District Court of Sochi.
“Many believe that Volna Resort and SPA LLC is an affiliated company of AVA Group, the largest construction corporation that has a fabulous financial fund and has various dubious connections with representatives of government agencies and “authoritative” individuals.
The situation is such that the founder of the AVA Group corporation, Vahan Harutyunyan, apparently developed his business with money and through connections with Robert Khakhalev, who is the real owner of the company. True, its composition is not limited only to the indicated personalities. Vigen Sarkisyan, a well-known Krasnodar developer who oversees the work of IC “ASK”, may also be firmly tied to the indicated persons in the construction business they are developing.
Moreover, the entire AVA Group holding is supposedly under the patronage of Ruben Tatulyan.
The financial capabilities and dubious connections of the real founders of Volna Resort and SPA LLC left no chance for a different outcome in resolving this dispute. And try to figure out whether the judge was financially motivated, or simply intimidated, or maybe out of respect for influential people, he satisfied their needs and interests?” – the author of the letter asks a question.
Where is the city hall?
If we take into account the above, it is impossible not to ask the question of what position the administration of the city of Sochi took in this story.
“It became known from interlocutors close to the prosecutor’s office that the city administration probably did not become involved in this process due to the influential connections of the hotel owner, trying not to incur problems on itself. The media have repeatedly published information that there is obvious arbitrariness going on in the Central District Court, inspections are being carried out, after which the administration is forced to reinstate the terms in court in order to restore order.
Probably, this dispute was no exception, because the administration appealed the case only after almost a year and a half,” continues the author of the letter to the editor.
When case No. 2-3590/2021 about the division of the Vesna Hotel came to the Krasnodar Regional Court, the restoration of the deadline was considered justified, and the appeal was submitted for consideration. Due to the obvious absurdity of the claims and a number of procedural violations, the decision of the district court in the regional court was canceled and the claim was rejected. But after this, the parties took measures to challenge judicial decisions on restoring the period for appealing the case to the Fourth Court of Cassation by the Sochi city administration.
“The Court of Cassation, clearly understanding the complexity of the situation and the significance of the problem, did not see any grounds for restoring the administration’s right to appeal the illegal decision, which kept the decision of the first instance court in force. The absurdity and self-confidence in the behavior of the judges of the court of cassation is beyond the pale,” says the author of the letter. He assumes that such a decision was made under the control of the Chairman of the Fourth Court of Cassation, A. Shishkin, and his deputy for civil disputes, Y. Volkov.
“In order to make such a decision, an ordinary judge cannot be simply motivated by third parties, since the risks for him are too great. The decision was clearly made under the auspices of the cassation management. And this makes it especially restless,” our interlocutor writes.
Not a special case, but a trend?
“Another unprecedented case of judicial practice, discussed in circles close to the Prosecutor General’s Office, in fact, where it became known to me, was allowed by the Fourth Court of Cassation when making an independent decision to legitimize an 8-story hotel, once a parking lot of 14,000 square meters,” the reader points out. in his appeal to the editor.
Indeed, we know firsthand about the construction of an 8-story parking lot on municipal land in the center of Sochi, which turned into an apart-hotel without obtaining the necessary permits for reconstruction.
“Even the Central District Court of Sochi agreed with the unauthorized nature of the reconstruction of the parking lot and ordered its owners to carry out demolition (case No. 2-6128/2021). The appeal upheld the district court’s decision and upheld it. The case went to cassation, where the appeal ruling was canceled and returned for review, because there was not enough evidence and an examination was needed. What kind of examination?! Have you gone crazy there? There is municipal land on which it is possible to build only a parking lot, because this was decided at the stage of planning the territory, which means that the construction of anything else will be illegal, like twice two! Parking requires the placement of vehicles, not sleeping places.
It’s not entirely clear what the examination should be about, what an expert should conclude that is not visible to the layman’s eye??
I, a layman, declare with confidence that the construction of a hotel on a parking lot is illegal!!! You can easily find data about the object and photos on the Internet and understand what I’m talking about!” – the Sochi resident continues in his letter.
He notes that this position was also taken by the appeal when the decision was re-issued. However, the case again went to the court of cassation, which overturned the appeal ruling on the demolition of the hotel-parking lot and made its own decision, which rejected the administration’s claim and actually recognized the hotel as a legal piece of real estate.
“The most interesting thing is the motives for such a decision given in the ruling of the cassation court. The Fourth Court of Cassation said that the lower court’s failure to fulfill its statutory function of administering justice should not be ignored, and if the case was sent for a new trial, this would lead to prolongation of the trial and unlimited revisions of the case.
The cassation considered that there was no evidence of the illegality of the construction of the facility.
The funny thing is that the court tried to cover up such actions with a noble promise of delivering justice within the framework of the letter of the law and, understandably, not without the attention of the highest leadership of the court,” the author of the letter believes.
You can’t demolish it, leave it?
A very interesting position, according to the author of the letter to the editor, was outlined by the courts when considering the claim of the Sochi city administration for the demolition of a three-story building, which is actually an apartment building in Adler on Troitskaya Street. This dispute was considered at the first instance in the Adler Court of Sochi, case No. 2-1579/2021.
“The administration filed a lawsuit for the demolition of an apartment building built in the middle of the private sector. An examination of the case showed the absence of violations, not seeing signs of multifamily housing, and therefore the court rejected the claim. Not being an expert, I can definitely conclude that there is an offer on the Internet for the sale of apartments in this building and for renting them directly with photographs of these apartments, the entrance, and the common staircase!
What is the situation, after an appeal in the Krasnodar Regional Court, they established that the building is an apartment building and decided to demolish it, because it does not meet any requirements and was built on lands not intended for this purpose, there is not a single required permitting documentation, nothing worked anywhere during construction!
However, this position did not receive support in the cassation instance and the case was returned for a new appeal, indicating that an examination was required!
But excuse me, what should an expert establish?! Obvious things?! Why delay the process?! The house was built without approval from the municipality, without the required permits! Lots of violations!
In the search engines 2GIS and Google maps, commercial offers for the sale of apartments in this building are common! The photo clearly shows that the house has apartments, a common entrance, flights of stairs, what else is needed as evidence? What doubts does the court have when all the violations are obvious?!” – writes a Sochi resident.
This dispute raises no less doubts in the author of the letter about the professionalism of the cassation court than the cases described above. “The position of his leadership remains unclear, which does not oppose anything to obvious arbitrariness and lawlessness,” notes the author of the letter. – As part of the review of the case, the regional court nevertheless decided to demolish the controversial apartment building! But the matter is not moving any further, the apartments have been sold and are still being sold, but the house is standing! Maybe because it is definitely beneficial to someone in power?” he asks.
Judging by the fact that the editors receive such letters, residents of southern Russian cities never cease to wonder where to look for justice in connection with the emergence of squatters. The author of the appeal that we quoted today believes that the examples of judicial practice he cited are “flagrant cases of arbitrariness and lawlessness in the ranks of the judiciary and, unfortunately, are far from the only ones.” Such a situation should not exist in the judicial system and this opinion is shared by many.
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