CASE OF VOROBYOV AND VYKHRYSTYUK v. UKRAINE

FIFTH SECTION

CASE OF VOROBYOV AND VYKHRYSTYUK v. UKRAINE

(Applications nos. 77542/17 and 77551/17)

JUDGMENT
 

STRASBOURG

9 October 2025

This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision.

In the case of Vorobyov and Vykhrystyuk v. Ukraine,

The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:

 Andreas Zünd, President,
 Mykola Gnatovskyy,
 Vahe Grigoryan, judges,
and Martina Keller, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to:

the applications against Ukraine lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 30 October 2017 by Vorobyov Pavlo Pavlovych (“the first applicant”) and Vykhrystyuk Mariya Pavlivna (“the second applicant”, together “the applicants”), who were represented by Mr O.V. Ryabokon, a lawyer practising in Poltava;

the decision to give notice of the complaints under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention to the Ukrainian Government (“the Government”) represented by their Agent, Ms M. Sokorenko, and to declare the remainder of the applications inadmissible;

the parties’ observations;

Having deliberated in private on 11 September 2025,

Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

1.  The case concerns the applicants’ complaint that it was impossible for them to inherit a flat from their deceased mother, as the privatisation of that flat had been invalidated on the grounds that it had violated the rights of other persons. The applicants relied on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention.

2.  The applicants are the children of Ms M., who died in 2012.

3.  In 1968 Ms M. obtained from former local authorities the tenancy of a flat in Poltava under the former Soviet legislation on public housing stock. Since 1983 she had been living in it with her granddaughter, Ms Z., and, subsequently, also with the latter’s husband, Mr Z. In 1993, after Ukraine’s transition from the Soviet law, which did not recognise ownership of immovable property by natural persons and entities other than the State, to a system based on ownership and tenancy in the classical sense, Ms M. acquired title to that flat in the course of the privatisation process during which Ms M. had designated Ms Z. and Mr Z. as “temporary residents”. Ms M. was thus referred to in the documents as the flat’s sole owner. It is unclear whose daughter Ms Z. is.

4.   In a will dated 2006 Ms M. left the flat to the applicants and to Ms Z.; however, in a later will, written in 2011, the flat was left only to the applicants.

5.  Upon Ms M.’s death, Ms Z. and Mr Z. lodged a claim seeking to have both the 1993 ownership certificate for the flat and the 2011 will invalidated. They argued that Ms M. had not been entitled to obtain title to the flat through the privatisation process or to register herself as the sole owner, because all three of them had been living in it as a family for a long time. Both the local authority from which Ms M. had obtained the flat and the applicants were respondents in the proceedings.

6.  After several re-examinations of the case, the above claim was granted in part; the privatisation decision was set aside and Ms M.’s ownership certificate was invalidated. The domestic courts found that Ms Z. and Mr Z. ought to have been regarded as members of Ms M.’s family and, as such, included in the privatisation process. The authorities had therefore erred when examining Ms M.’s application for privatisation of the flat. The courts rejected, on procedural grounds, the claim for invalidation of the 2011 will. In the course of the proceedings the representative of the local authority argued that were the request for invalidation of the privatisation to be granted, a situation would be created whereby the privatisation would be set aside after the death of the (main) person concerned and the flat, which had been initially obtained by that person on the basis of no longer existing (Soviet) legal norms from the no longer existing bodies would thus belong to nobody, and it would be impossible either to re-privatise or inherit it.

7.  The final domestic judgment was adopted by the Higher Specialised Civil and Criminal Court on 21 June 2017.

8.  In their observations the Government informed the Court that Ms Z. and Mr Z. were “registered” as living in the flat. For their part, the applicants provided an excerpt from the relevant State register confirming that, as of August 2018, Ms Z. and Mr Z. and their two children were the owners of the flat in question. The Government did not comment on that point.

THE COURT’S ASSESSMENT

9.  Having regard to the similar subject matter of the applications, the Court finds it appropriate to examine them jointly in a single judgment.

10.  The first applicant, Mr Vorobyov, died on 2 January 2024, after lodging the present application. His daughter, Ms T., expressed her wish to continue the proceedings before the Court in his stead. She provided a certificate, drawn up by a notary, confirming that she was an heir of the deceased Mr Vorobyov.

11.  The Government disputed Ms T.’s standing to pursue the application in the first applicant’s stead, arguing that she had failed to prove that she was his only heir. They also argued that she had no moral or material interest in pursuing the case.

12.  The Court notes that in various cases in which an applicant has died during the Convention proceedings, it has taken into account the statements made by the applicant’s heirs or close family members expressing the wish to pursue the proceedings before the Court. In view of the above and having regard to the circumstances of the present case, which relates to property rights, the Court accepts that Ms T. has a legitimate interest in pursuing the application in her late father’s stead. However, for reasons of convenience, the text of this judgment will continue to refer to Mr Vorobyov as “the first applicant” (see, for a recent example, Vasylevska v. Ukraine (dec.), no. 37919/15, § 12, 4 July 2024, with further references).

13.  The applicants complained under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention that the manner in which the domestic courts had revoked their deceased mother’s title to the flat in question had been unfair and had deprived them of the possibility to inherit it after her death, as she had stipulated in her will. The applicants stated that even if it were accepted that Ms Z. and Mr Z. could claim property rights over the flat in question, this would only mean that they had privatised it in equal shares with Ms M. and that, accordingly, the applicants were entitled to inherit Ms M.’s share.

14.  The Government argued that Ms M. had failed to privatise the flat in accordance with the rules and procedures established by law, in that her privatisation of the flat as its sole owner had infringed the rights of the other persons living in it. The domestic courts, having conducted a detailed analysis of the case, concluded that Ms M.’s title had to be revoked in order to protect the rights of Ms Z. and Mr Z. The interference had therefore been lawful and pursued the legitimate aim of “controlling the use of property in accordance with the general interest of ensuring the protection of the housing rights of others”. The Government also submitted that the interference had been proportionate, since Ms Z. and Mr Z. had been living in the flat for many years and were entitled to claim property rights over it. At the same time, the applicants had, in the Government’s view, an appropriate legal mechanism allowing them to protect their rights before the domestic courts, in particular, they could have initiated proceedings to claim ownership of the flat through inheritance, which they had failed to do.

15.  On the latter point, the applicants argued that it had not been possible to initiate separate proceedings, because the fact that their late mother’s title to the flat had been revoked meant that there was no object over which inheritance rights could be claimed.

16.  The Court notes at the outset that the applicants had been designated in their late mother’s 2011 will as her heirs in respect of the flat in question. During the domestic proceedings Ms Z. and Mr Z. sought to have that will invalidated, but their request was rejected by the courts without consideration on the merits. The Court reiterates, in that connection, that it has previously found that an applicant’s proprietary interest in inheriting from a deceased relative was of a sufficient nature and sufficiently recognised to constitute a “possession” (see Molla Sali v. Greece [GC], no. 20452/14, §§ 128-32, 19 December 2018). The Court has also considered that the capacity of minors to acquire certain rights through gift or inheritance constitutes a legitimate expectation falling within the scope of “possession” (see Uzan and Others v. Turkey, nos. 19620/05 and 3 others, § 193, 5 March 2019). In the present case, the Court considers that the applicants could claim to have at least a legitimate expectation as regards the flat in question (or shares in it).

17.  The Court therefore considers that Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 is applicable in the present case. Insofar as the Government may be understood as arguing that the applicants failed to exhaust domestic remedies, the Court notes that that argument relates closely to the merits of the case, and it will examine it under that head.

18.  The Court further notes that the applications are not manifestly ill‑founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention or inadmissible on any other grounds. They must therefore be declared admissible.

19.  The Court further notes that the proceedings in the present case were civil, even though they related to the annulment of the local authorities’ decision on the privatisation of the flat in question and the revocation of Ms M.’s title thereto. The proceedings were initiated following Ms M.’s death, and in view of a potential inheritance dispute, and focused mainly on the need to protect the rights of Ms Z. and Mr Z. At no stage of the proceedings was it argued that the disputed flat should be transferred back to the local authorities (which, moreover, essentially objected to the invalidation of the privatisation; see paragraph 6 above). Accordingly, the present case is, essentially, a dispute between private parties over rights to property (see Lupashku v. Ukraine [Committee], no, 57149/14, § 27, 24 April 2025).

20.  Private disputes do not as such engage the responsibility of the State under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention. However, even in such cases the State has a positive obligation to take necessary measures to protect property rights, particularly where there is a direct link between the measures an applicant might legitimately expect from the authorities and his or her effective enjoyment of possessions (see Plechanow v. Poland, no. 22279/04, § 100, 7 July 2009). In particular, the States are under an obligation to afford judicial procedures that offer the necessary procedural guarantees and therefore enable the domestic courts and tribunals to adjudicate effectively and fairly any disputes between private persons (see Kanevska v. Ukraine (dec.), no. 73944/11, § 45, 17 November 2020, with further references). The Court’s task is then to assess whether the domestic courts’ adjudication of a property dispute between private parties was in accordance with domestic law and to ascertain whether or not their decisions were arbitrary or manifestly unreasonable (see, for instance, Kushoglu v. Bulgaria, no. 48191/99, §§ 47-48, 10 May 2007, and Mindek v. Croatia, no. 6169/13, § 78, 30 August 2016).

21.  The Court observes that Ms M.’s title was challenged after her death by Ms Z. and Mr Z., who asserted that she had privatised, as sole owner, the flat in which they had all been living together as a family for a long time. In the course of the domestic proceedings, the claimants did not ask the domestic courts to acknowledge their rights over the flat, but instead sought to invalidate its privatisation as such. The domestic courts found that Ms Z. and Mr Z. had been unlawfully excluded from the privatisation process and that the privatisation of the flat ought therefore to be invalidated and Ms M.’s title revoked.

22.  In that connection the Court notes that in 1968 Ms M. had been offered a tenancy in respect of the flat in her personal capacity, and that it was she who had acquired the right to privatise the flat when it became possible to do so. The domestic courts’ reasoning when invalidating the privatisation seems to suggest that Ms Z. and Mr Z. did not have a self‑standing right to privatise the flat without Ms M. In other words, they were able to participate in the privatisation process only as Ms M.’s family members. Following her death, it is unclear how the flat’s subsequent ownership could be decided simply by invalidating its privatisation in full and revoking Ms M.’s title thereto, or how such an approach could serve the aim of protecting the rights of Ms Z. and Mr Z. In this connection, the Court notes the local authorities’ position, raised during the proceedings, to the effect that if the invalidation claim were to be granted, the flat would essentially be owned by no one (see paragraphs 3 and 6 above).

23.  Furthermore, the domestic courts’ ruling meant that the applicants could not inherit the flat or any shares in it. Even the share that Ms M. could potentially have acquired in the flat had it been privatised in compliance with the rules could no longer be allocated to anyone, because Ms M. had died several years previously.

24.  In this connection, the Court notes that in August 2018 Ms Z. and Mr Z., together with their children, somehow became the owners of the flat (see paragraph 8 above). The Government have failed to explain how this situation came about.

25.  The Court is mindful that it cannot substitute its own assessment for the decisions of the domestic courts, which have the advantage of possessing direct knowledge of the situation and are better placed to determine the nature of each claim and the underlying legal interests (see Lagardère v. France, no. 18851/07, §§ 48-49, 12 April 2012). However, in the light of its findings above it cannot but conclude that the domestic courts failed to ensure a thorough examination of the applicants’ case and to provide adequate reasons for the decision to revoke, in full, their late mother’s title to the flat, which essentially prevented them from asserting their inheritance rights.

26.  There has accordingly been a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention.

APPLICATION OF ARTICLE 41 OF THE CONVENTION

27.  The applicants claimed 17,600 euros (EUR) each in respect of pecuniary damage. They calculated that amount as half of the median amount between the flat’s value as established in a valuation report of October 2014, commissioned during the domestic proceedings (337,579 Ukrainian hryvnias (UAH) or EUR 20,710 at the time), and in a valuation report of August 2024 (UAH 2,268,189.42). The applicants also claimed EUR 5,000 each in respect of non-pecuniary damage.

28.  Lastly, the applicants claimed EUR 3,000 each in respect of the costs and expenses incurred before the Court. They provided copies of the legal aid contracts with their lawyer, which stipulate that the above-mentioned amounts are to be paid by the applicants after the delivery of the Court’s judgment.

29.  The Government contested those claims. They reiterated their position that there had been no violation of the applicants’ rights and that, in any case, the amounts claimed were excessive. Furthermore, the claims for costs and expenses had not been duly supported with documents; in particular, the applicants had not provided any detailed explanation of the services provided or the number of hours spent on the case.

30.  The Court notes that, sometimes, a precise calculation of the sums necessary to make complete reparation in respect of the pecuniary losses suffered by the applicant may be prevented by the inherently uncertain character of the damage flowing from the violation. If one or more heads of damage cannot be calculated precisely or if the distinction between pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage proves difficult, the Court may decide to make a global assessment. In order to determine just satisfaction, the Court has regard to the particular features of each case, which may call for an award less than the value of the actual damage sustained or the costs and expenses actually incurred, or even for no award at all. It is also noteworthy that the Court enjoys a certain discretion in the exercise of the power conferred by Article 41, as is borne out by the adjective “just” and the phrase “if necessary” in its text (see, for example, Agrokompleks v. Ukraine (just satisfaction), no. 23465/03, §§ 78-81, 25 July 2013, with further references).

31.  Having regard to the circumstances of the present case, the Court considers it appropriate to make a global award of EUR 8,000 to each applicant in respect of pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage, plus any tax that may be chargeable on that amount.

32.  Having regard to the fact that the applicants are under a contractual obligation to pay their lawyer (see Belousov v. Ukraine, no. 4494/07, § 115, 7 November 2013, with further references) and in the light of the documents in its possession, the Court considers it reasonable to award each applicant EUR 500 for the costs and expenses incurred in the proceedings before the Court, plus any tax that may be chargeable to the applicants, and dismisses the remainder of the claims.

FOR THESE REASONS, THE COURT, UNANIMOUSLY,

(a)  that the respondent State is to pay each applicant, within three months, the following amounts, to be converted into the currency of the respondent State at the rate applicable at the date of settlement;

(i)  EUR 8,000 (eight thousand euros), plus any tax that may be chargeable, in respect of pecuniary and non-pecuniary damage;

(ii)  EUR 500 (five hundred euros), plus any tax that may be chargeable to the applicants, in respect of costs and expenses;

(b)  that from the expiry of the above-mentioned three months until settlement simple interest shall be payable on the above amounts at a rate equal to the marginal lending rate of the European Central Bank during the default period plus three percentage points;

Done in English, and notified in writing on 9 October 2025, pursuant to Rule 77 §§ 2 and 3 of the Rules of Court.

 Martina Keller Andreas Zünd
 Deputy Registrar President