Refusal to purchase a room in a communal apartment (sample)

Home / Purchase and sale of apartments / Secondary and new housing / Refusal to purchase a room in a communal apartment

The purchase and sale of part of the living space in a communal apartment takes place according to certain rules, violation of which can lead to the cancellation of the transaction. One of them concerns the priority right of other residents to buy out the room being sold. If they do not have the desire or opportunity to do so, a refusal to purchase is issued. Only with such a document can you freely dispose of your part of the real estate and sell it to third parties.

Legal requirements

Art. 250 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation establishes that, when deciding to sell his room in a communal apartment, the owner is obliged first of all to notify his neighbors of such intention. They are considered co-owners of this property and have the primary right to purchase it. In this case, the terms of the transaction must fully comply with those that are planned to be offered to third parties:

price, deposit or advance payment;
payment procedure (full payment, installments, deferred payment);
deadlines for vacating housing (after full payment or on other conditions).

Example. The neighbors were told the purchase price of the room was 350,000 rubles. , but after receiving a refusal, the owner sold it to an outsider for 250,000 rubles. Having learned about the difference in prices, a neighbor has the right to challenge the transaction on the grounds provided for by current legislation.

If there are no residents willing to expand their living space, they issue a written refusal to purchase a room in a communal apartment. In the absence of this document, a transaction with an outside buyer can be successfully challenged in court, since the court in most cases takes the side of the “injured” neighbor.

Waiver validity period

The refusal, as such, does not have a specific validity period. It concerns a clearly defined situation. It is impossible, for example, on the basis of one refusal to sell a completely different room, and not the one that was originally intended. Thus, the refusal is a one-time document, relevant only in certain conditions and for an extremely limited period of time.

By law, a potential neighbor buyer has exactly 30 days from the date of receipt of notification of the sale of the room. This period can be considered as the validity period of the refusal.

Procedure for notifying neighbors

The procedure for refusing to purchase a room in a communal apartment begins with written notification of neighbors about the planned sale of their part of the real estate. The procedure will be as follows:

Compose the text of the notification.
Hand over the document to each co-owner of a communal apartment.
Discuss refusal to purchase.
Draw up the relevant document in writing (either yourself or in the presence of a notary).
Have the refusal certified by a notary.

Expert opinion

Semyon Frolov

Lawyer. 7 years of experience. Specialization: family, inheritance, housing law.

The ideal option is when you have good relations with your neighbors, so they will easily agree to draw up a document and have it certified by a notary. If they refuse to accept a written notice by hand, it should be sent by mail, even if they live in the same apartment. In this case, it is important to issue the shipment by registered mail with a list of attachments and a receipt notification, keeping postal receipts for payment for the shipment.

How to write a notification

The text of the notice of the planned sale should indicate:

Personal information of the room seller and recipient.
Intent to sell the room, indicating the details of title documents and a certificate of ownership/extract from the Unified State Register of Real Estate.
Characteristics of the property being sold: address, square footage, price and terms of purchase.
A note about pre-emptive rights.
Deadline for making a decision.
Consequences of failure to provide a response (sale to an outside party).
Date of registration.
Author's signature with transcript.

To whom to direct

Only neighbors who have the right of first refusal to purchase the property being sold should be informed about the planned sale. These are those who use housing on the basis of ownership , regardless of how it was obtained (through privatization, gift or sale agreement, inheritance). No approvals are required with persons living under a social tenancy or rental agreement. You can clarify the real rights of neighbors to the rooms of a communal apartment through a request to Rosreestr. The extract is issued on the basis of the applicant’s passport, after paying a state fee in the amount of 200 rubles .

For non-privatized rooms, the local administration is considered their owner. In this case, all approvals should be carried out with the municipal property management department.

When drawing up the text of the notice, it is important to take into account that among the co-owners there may be minors:

Children under 14 years of age - notice to parents or other legal guardians. They will subsequently formalize the refusal if such an agreement can be reached.
Children 14-18 years old - the notification is sent directly to them, but the written response must have the signature of one of the parents/legal representatives.

In relation to minor owners, it is also required to additionally obtain written permission from the guardianship and trusteeship authorities.

Response time

As soon as the notification is received, each of the residents of the communal apartment can issue a refusal to purchase the room being sold or buy it back at the specified price. In the latter case, there is no need to draw up a written response; you can immediately formalize the purchase and sale transaction and send documents to Rosreestr for re-registration of property rights to the new owner.

1 month to make a final decision (Article 250, Part 2 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation) from the date of delivery indicated on the postal notification. If no response is received within the specified time, the refusal is counted automatically. Thus, the legal formality will be observed, so the owner-seller then has complete freedom of action in selling the room to any person. At the same time, to register the transfer of ownership of the buyer in Rosreestr, a postal receipt of delivery will need to be attached to the package of documents. It will confirm the fact that neighbors have been notified in writing about the sale of their part of the property in the communal apartment. In addition, the owner has the right to confirm this fact and the lack of response from the co-owners with the help of an additional certificate from a notary. To do this you need to provide:

copies of letters sent to each addressee;
postal receipts confirming the sending of letters.

The holder of such a certificate, obtained from a notary's office, has the right to sell his property to anyone, without fear of litigation with disgruntled neighbors.

Deal Features

From the point of view of civil law, a real estate gift agreement has several characteristics:

is free of charge;
consists solely in the form of a written document;
mandatory requires state registration, otherwise the transaction cannot be considered concluded. The point is that without registering the fact of transfer of ownership, such an agreement cannot be considered concluded in the manner prescribed by law.

Expert commentary

Leonov Victor

Lawyer

The gift is made free of charge, therefore the payment of any monetary remuneration by the recipient of the property in favor of the donor (including to a non-relative) is not allowed. Otherwise, the concluded contract may be terminated, and each of its parties will suffer significant losses.

Refusal options

Waiver of the preemptive right to purchase can be issued in two ways:

write it yourself, have it certified by a notary and send by registered mail;
contact a notary to draw up and certify the document.

The document is drawn up in printed or handwritten form. The main thing is to notify the owner-seller in writing about the decision made. An oral agreement will not have legal force.

The refusal can also be issued by contacting the Rosreestr authorities. But in practice, this option is used very rarely, since in order to draw up the document it is necessary to gather all the co-owners together at the registration authority.

Required documents

To formalize/certify the refusal to purchase a room from a notary, each of the co-owners of a communal apartment provides:

passport/birth certificate as proof of your identity;
an extract from the Unified State Register of Real Estate/certificate of ownership confirming the fact of ownership of your part of a communal apartment;
title documents confirming the basis of housing ownership.

Expert opinion

Dmitry Nosikov

Lawyer. Specialization: family and housing law.

Instead of the co-owner of a communal apartment, the presence of his representative is allowed, provided that he has a notarized power of attorney for the relevant actions. However, such a document is not required for parents acting on behalf of their own children.

Expenses

The main costs of registration are payment for notary services for certification of the document. The amount varies between 1000-2000 rubles depending on the region. In addition, depending on the circumstances, the following may be additionally paid:

postal services for sending registered letters (the price is determined according to postal tariffs depending on the remoteness of the recipient’s residence);
notary services for drafting the text of a document.

Since the seller is primarily interested in obtaining the document, as a rule, he bears all the costs.

General information about donation

Issues of donation are regulated in Chapter 32 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. In addition, in some situations, tax, family, civil procedural and administrative laws may apply.

Ownership rights pass to the donee only upon completion of the state registration procedure. This happens in the bodies of Rosreestr. The data is entered into the Unified State Register of Rights to Real Estate (USRN). The basis for this will be a gift agreement.

The deed of gift is in simple written form. By law, notarization is required only in certain cases. If the document is drawn up by a notary, then the specialist will handle all the paperwork in full.

The donee has the right to relinquish the property at any time. In this case, he will need to reimburse the other party for all expenses incurred. For example, all costs for processing and registering a transaction.

The donor can also cancel the transaction. However, this requires compelling reasons. For example, if the donee has made an attempt on the life and health of the donor or deliberately destroys the received property.

Contents of the document

The refusal to purchase part of a communal apartment shall include the following information:

Name.
Date and place of registration.
Information of the person (full name, passport details) waiving the pre-emptive right to purchase the property.
Characteristics of real estate.
A phrase confirming the refusal to purchase (sometimes with a note indicating consent to sale to a third party).
Author's signature.

The document is certified by the notary with his signature and seal. Often, when contacting a notary office, applicants are asked to fill out a ready-made form, which significantly reduces the time for the procedure.

Sample refusal to purchase a room in a communal apartment

Features of donating a room in a communal apartment

In legal practice, there are situations when a deed of gift is drawn up for a share of a room in a communal apartment. When the share is 1/3 or more, the donee gets the opportunity to actually live. If the share is smaller, only registration is allowed.

Some citizens hide purchase and sale under the guise of donation. This may be done in order to avoid taxes or the need to obtain neighbors' consent to sell the room. Such actions are illegal. If other residents can prove in court that the donation is fictitious, the transaction will be forcibly cancelled.

A gift agreement may not be accepted for registration if the principle of gratuitousness is violated or incorrect information about the parties to the transaction is provided. In addition, donation of real estate is not allowed if there is an encumbrance on it. In particular, arrest is such a burden.

Like any transaction, donating a room in a communal apartment has advantages and disadvantages. The advantages include:

when transferring property to close relatives, you do not need to obtain permission from neighbors;
you can donate a share in the room to a stranger, and later sell the object completely, since then he will have a pre-emptive right to purchase;
the transaction cannot be challenged after three years.

There are also negative sides:

if the room was transferred under a gift agreement to an outsider, the neighbors may see it as fictitious and sue;
only a room will be transferred by deed of gift - the bathroom, bathroom, kitchen, corridor are the common property of all residents of the communal apartment;
If the donor has minor children, after reaching the age of 18 they will be able to make property claims against the object of the donation.

You can exclude the possibility of challenging the deed of gift through notarization. However, judicial practice has cases where the contract was declared invalid even in such a situation.

Options for solving problem situations

The actions of the owner in accordance with the law do not yet guarantee the conscientious fulfillment of obligations in return by neighbors in the communal apartment. Thus, the following problem situations are possible, which require different options for action:

Refusal to accept the letter. In this case, it is returned to the sender with a mark indicating refusal of receipt. It is important to keep the envelope sealed and then present it together with receipts for payment of postage to the Rosreestr authorities when registering the transfer of ownership rights to the name of an outside buyer.
Unknown whereabouts of one of the co-owners. In this case, it is necessary to initiate a procedure in court to declare the person missing, and indicate as a basis the need to respect the right of first refusal. This status is assigned if there is no information about a person’s whereabouts for 12 months.

If the disappeared person is not found, the court appoints a manager for his property, to whom you should address your notification and wait for a response.

Actual residence of the co-owner in another city or country. Here you should seek help from a notary, who will send a notarized notification, and if there is no response to it, issue a corresponding certificate.
Inheritance not accepted by legal successors after the death of a co-owner. One of the most difficult situations. In this case, you can go to court to identify the person who inherits the deceased’s room, or recognize it as escheatable property, which the local administration is obliged to accept on the municipal balance sheet. In any case, a person will be identified to whom you can send notice of the planned sale and wait for a response. Upon subsequent re-registration of property rights in Rosreestr, a court decision, notification and written refusals must be attached.

Are you having difficulty processing your neighbors' refusal to buy a room in a communal apartment?
At a free consultation, experienced lawyers will tell you what steps are best to take in your case. They can also accompany further purchase and sale transactions with third parties in order to save the parties from possible problems and proceedings with the judicial authorities. Attention!

Due to frequent changes in legislation, information sometimes becomes outdated faster than we can update it on the website.
All cases are very individual and depend on many factors. Basic information does not guarantee a solution to your specific problems.

That's why FREE expert consultants work for you around the clock!