MILAŠAUSKIENĖ v. LITHUANIA

SECOND SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 58179/18
Matilda MILAŠAUSKIENĖ
against Lithuania

The European Court of Human Rights (Second Section), sitting on 8 June 2021 as a Committee composed of:

Carlo Ranzoni, President,
Egidijus Kūris,
Pauliine Koskelo, judges,
and Hasan Bakırcı, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 4 December 2018,

Having regard to the observations submitted by the respondent Government and the observations in reply submitted by the applicant,

Having deliberated, decides as follows:

THE FACTS

1.  The applicant, Ms Matilda Milašauskienė, is a Lithuanian national, who was born in 1926 and lives in Kaunas. She was represented before the Court by Ms A. Kargaudienė, a lawyer practising in the Kaunas area.

2.  The Lithuanian Government (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Ms K. Bubnytė-Širmenė.

3.  The applicant is the heir of her late husband, Z., who died in October 2018.The circumstances of the caseConstruction of the summer house

4.  The applicant married Z. in 1951. On an unspecified date Z. started working at company L.

5.  According to the law at that time, land was the exclusive property of the State, but it could be allocated to other subjects for use (see paragraph 31 below).

6.  In 1967 local authorities allocated to company L. a plot of land in Šventoji, a resort town on the Baltic coast, for the creation of a leisure camp and for the construction of summer houses (see paragraph 34 below). The decision stated that the construction could only be carried out after receiving a construction permit from the regional architect and the finished summer houses had to be “approved for exploitation” (priimti eksploatacijon – that is to say, declared suitable for use) by a special interdepartmental commission (tarpžinybinė komisija; see paragraphs 32 and 37 below).

7.  At the beginning of 1972 Z. built a summer house on the plot allocated to company L.

8.  In May 1972 company L. notified the Klaipėda Inventorisation Bureau that it “did not object” to Z. building the summer house. That same month the Klaipėda Inventorisation Bureau compiled a technical file (techninės apskaitos byla) of the summer house, which included its blueprint and indicated that it was located on Kopų street (see paragraph 36 below).

9.  In 1979 Z. signed a sale-purchase agreement by which he undertook to sell the summer house to another person. In 1980 they annulled the sale, because the buyer had not paid. As agreed by the parties in the present case, it was at that time that Z. learned that the summer house had not been registered in the relevant public register.

10.  As submitted by the applicant and not disputed by the Government, from the date when he had built the summer house, Z. paid taxes to the State. The documents which have been provided to the Court cover the periods of 1976-89, 1991 and 2003-2008. According to those documents, in 1976-89 Z. paid either a “dwelling tax and land rent” (trobesių mokestis ir žemės renta) or “tax for owners of buildings and land tax” (pastatų savininkų mokestis ir žemės mokestis). In 1991 and in 2003-2008 he paid land rent tax (žemės nuomos mokestis). In all the tax declarations the address of the plot for which the tax was paid was indicated as Kopų str. 36.Lithuanian authorities’ efforts to remove the summer houses built in Šventoji

11.  In July 2007 the National Audit Office (hereinafter “the NAO”) issued a report on the use of land on the Baltic coast. It found that numerous summer houses had been built in that area in 1965-75. Their exact number was unknown, but it was estimated to be around one thousand. Documents concerning their construction, registration and ownership were not available. An expert had examined some of the summer houses and had found that their architectural structure was primitive, they were old and obsolete, and their presence polluted the surrounding area. The expert recommended that they be declared unsuitable for use and be demolished.

12.  The NAO found that several hundred summer houses had been registered in the Real Estate Register, or that their owners’ property rights had been recognised by the courts on the grounds of acquisitive prescription. This entitled their owners to buy or rent the public land on which they had been built, as well as to reconstruct them or build new buildings in their place, which posed a danger to the valuable and ecologically sensitive seaside environment. Although in the past the local authorities had taken some steps to address the issue of the summer houses, their efforts had been fragmented and ineffective. The NAO recommended that the summer houses be considered as temporary structures and that they should not be registered in the Real Estate Register.

13.  In December 2014 the NAO issued another report. It found that the authorities had still not taken sufficient action to resolve the issue of the summer houses in the Šventoji area. The majority of the summer houses were in very bad condition and their surroundings were not being properly maintained. Furthermore, some of them were located in protected natural areas or zones of cultural heritage. The NAO emphasised that proper control of the use of land on the Baltic coast should be a matter of priority.

14.  In 2015 the authorities placed warning notes on the doors of summer houses, notifying their owners that the buildings had been built unlawfully on public land. The owners were ordered to either register the summer houses in the Real Estate Register or demolish them by October 2015. The Government submitted that the warning notes had been placed on the doors of summer houses because, in the absence of their registration in the Real Estate Register, it had been impossible to identify their owners. It appears that Z. found such a note in September 2015.Z.’s attempts to register the summer house

15.  In December 2012 Z. sought to register the summer house and his property rights to it in the Real Estate Register. The Centre of Registers refused his request. It stated that, in line with the relevant law, the summer house was considered a temporary structure, therefore, neither the building, nor property rights to it could be included in the Real Estate Register.

16.  Z. lodged a repeated request to register the summer house, but it was dismissed on the same grounds. He lodged an appeal with the dispute‑settlement commission of the Centre of Registers, but that body upheld the decision. It also noted that Z. had failed to provide any proof that the summer house had been built lawfully and that he had obtained property rights to it.Proceedings for the establishment of facts of legal significance

(a)   Proceedings before the Palanga District Court

17.  In May 2015 Z. asked the Palanga District Court to establish facts of legal significance that the summer house was an immovable object and that it was his property, with a view of registering it in the Real Estate Register. He submitted that he had built the summer house on the land which had been allocated by the authorities to his employer at the time, company L., and that he had built it with the company’s permission (see paragraphs 6 and 8 above). When the construction had been completed, the authorities had inventoried the building and had compiled a technical file (see paragraph 8 above), and after that Z. had been convinced that all the requirements provided by law had been met. From the date of its construction, the summer house had never been declared to be unlawfully built by the authorities, and Z. and his family had been using it for years and paying the relevant taxes (see paragraph 10 above). Thus, it had to be concluded that the summer house had been built lawfully, after obtaining a construction permit, and that it had been declared suitable for use (see paragraphs 32 and 37 below), but that those documents had been lost.

18.  On various dates in 2015 and 2016 Z.’s lawyer contacted the Central State Archive, the Klaipėda County Archive and the Kretinga District Municipality, asking them for documents relating to the construction of summer houses in Šventoji, including a construction permit issued to Z. and the decision to declare his summer house suitable for use. The authorities replied that their archives did not contain such documents, either because they had never been provided to the archives, or because all the documents from that period had already been destroyed.

19.  The court appointed an expert to examine the summer house. The expert’s conclusion, issued in March 2016, stated that the summer house was an immovable object, that it was not a temporary construction, and that the law which had been in force at the time of its construction provided that such buildings needed to be registered, after being declared suitable for use.

20.  In July 2016 the Palanga District Court granted Z.’s request. It considered that, despite the missing documents, the circumstances indicated by Z. (see paragraph 17 above) were sufficient to demonstrate that the summer house was his lawful property.

(b)   Proceedings before the Klaipėda Regional Court

21.  The Palanga Municipality (hereinafter “the Municipality”) and the State Inspectorate on Territorial Planning and Construction (hereinafter “the Inspectorate”), which participated in the proceedings as third parties, appealed against the decision of the first-instance court.

22.  In their appeals, the Municipality and the Inspectorate submitted that the summer house had been built unlawfully and thus Z. could not have acquired property rights to it. In accordance with the law which had been in force at the time of the construction, individuals and private entities could be given land only by public authorities (see paragraph 31 below), which meant that company L. had not had the right to reallocate part of its plot to Z. Without having a lawfully allocated plot of land, Z. would not have been able to obtain a construction permit or to have any buildings on such land declared suitable for use; thus, it had to be concluded that such documents had never been issued, but not that they had been lost. The Municipality and the Inspectorate also submitted that the payment of taxes for renting land from the State had not entitled Z. to build on that land.

23.  In his reply to the appeals, Z. submitted essentially the same arguments as those presented in his initial claim (see paragraph 17 above).

24.  In September 2017 the Klaipėda Regional Court allowed the appeals and quashed the first-instance court’s decision. It emphasised that property rights to buildings could be obtained only if the construction had been carried out in compliance with the law. At the time when Z. had built the summer house, the law allowed construction only after obtaining a construction permit, and finished buildings had to be approved by a special interdepartmental commission and registered in a relevant public register (see paragraphs 32, 36 and 37 below). The court considered that Z. had not proved that those steps had been completed.

(c)   Proceedings before the Supreme Court

25.  Z. lodged an appeal on points of law. He submitted that it was not his fault that the evidence which the appellate court found lacking (see paragraph 24 above) had been lost and that he had been unable to obtain such evidence (see paragraph 18 above). However, various facts demonstrated that the summer house had been built lawfully – in particular, the fact that it had been inventoried by the authorities, the decision of company L. to allow him to build the summer house, and the taxes which he had paid over the years (see paragraphs 8 and 10 above).

26.  The Municipality submitted a reply, in which it presented similar arguments to those submitted before (see paragraph 22 above). In addition, it stated that the law at the material time had explicitly prohibited the allocation of land to individuals for the construction of summer houses (see paragraphs 31 and 33 below). Therefore, there had not been even a theoretical possibility for Z. to obtain a construction permit or to register the summer house. Furthermore, around the same time, numerous similar summer houses had been built on public land and none of the owners had been able to present proper documents proving their lawfulness (see paragraph 11 above). The Municipality argued that it was unreasonable to believe that all the documents concerning all the summer houses had been lost, as claimed by Z. and by owners in other similar cases.

27.  In June 2018 the Supreme Court dismissed the appeal on points of law lodged by Z. The court emphasised that, in order to determine whether Z. had obtained property rights to the summer house, it was necessary to examine whether the summer house had been built in compliance with the law which had been in force at that time (see paragraph 40 below) – in particular, whether he had obtained a construction permit and whether the finished summer house had been approved by the interdepartmental commission (see paragraphs 32 and 37 below).

28.  The Supreme Court observed that the Land Code of 1971 had prohibited allocating land to individuals for building summer houses (see paragraph 31 below). Thus, there had not been any legal basis for company L. to reallocate part of its plot to Z. Furthermore, even if there had been any such legal basis, Z. would have needed to obtain the right to use the land before he could apply for a construction permit; however, company L. had allowed him to use the land only after the summer house had been built (see paragraphs 7 and 8 above). Accordingly, the Supreme Court concluded that Z. had not proved that he had built the summer house in compliance with the law. It also stated that the fact that the summer house had not been declared by the authorities to be unlawfully built did not shift the burden on those authorities to prove its unlawfulness (see paragraph 39 below). On the contrary, the burden was on Z. to prove the facts which he was asking the court to establish, and he had failed to do so.Other relevant proceedings

29.  In April 2015 Z. asked the Palanga Municipality to assign an address to the summer house. The Municipality refused that request and stated that addresses could only be given to buildings which could be registered in the Real Estate Register, however, the summer house did not constitute such a building. That decision was upheld by the Klaipėda Regional Administrative Court in December 2017 and by the Supreme Administrative Court in November 2019.

30.  Following Z.’s death in October 2018, the applicant replaced him in the proceedings before the Supreme Administrative Court.Relevant domestic law and practiceLegal instruments which were in force at the time of the construction

(a)   Land Code of 1971

31.  The Land Code was in force from 1 July 1971 to 20 July 1994. In line with Article 4, land was the exclusive property of the State and it could only be allocated to other subjects for use. In line with Article 127 § 2, plots of land could not be allocated to individuals for the construction of individual summer houses.

(b)   Decisions of the Council of Ministers of the Lithuanian SSR

32.  Decision no. 570 of 13 December 1958 stated that construction could only be carried out after obtaining a construction permit from the Committee on Construction and Architectural Affairs.

33.  Decision no. 53 of 31 January 1961 prohibited the allocation of plots of land to individuals for building summer houses (paragraph 1).

34.  Decision no. 238 of 31 July 1968 stated that plots of land for the construction of leisure camps could be allocated to other entities by local authorities. It allowed the construction of simple buildings, to be used in the summer, in leisure camps, in accordance with a blueprint and a construction permit.

35.  Order no. 884-p of 20 October 1969 prohibited the construction of individual houses, summer houses and other buildings in the Šventoji area.

36.  Decision no. 2 of 4 January 1970 stated that buildings owned by individuals as their private property needed to be inventoried, declared suitable for use and registered (paragraphs 2 (d), 5 and 12). Temporary buildings could not be registered, nor could buildings which had been constructed unlawfully (paragraphs 5 and 16).

37.  Decision no. 317 of 31 August 1970 stated that residential houses needed to be declared suitable for use by a special commission (paragraph 1). When declaring a building suitable for use, the commission drew up a written decision (paragraph 6).Relevant law and practice after the restoration of the independence of Lithuania in 1990

38.  On 25 July 1991 the Government adopted decision no. 297 which provided that all residential and non-residential buildings, except for temporary or unlawful structures, had to be registered. On 3 March 2003 the Government adopted decision no. 278 (amended on 27 October 2011) which specified what documents individuals should submit in order to register their property rights to buildings built prior to 1991.

39.  In a decision of 2 June 1999 in civil case no. 3K-3-224/1999 the Supreme Court held that a building could become the property of its builder only if the construction had been carried out in accordance with the law. The failure by the authorities to take action against unlawful construction did not make such construction lawful, because rights could not be obtained by unlawful actions.

40.  In a decision of 8 April 2010 in civil case no. 3K-3-155/2010 and a decision of 21 December 2010 in civil case no. 3K-3-543/2010 the Supreme Court held that for the court to declare that a building was the claimant’s lawful property, all of the following conditions had to be met: (1) property rights to the building had been obtained in accordance with the law; (2) documents certifying the ownership had existed but had been lost; (3) it was impossible to retrieve or restore these documents in any other way; and (4) the building had been built and formalised in accordance with the law.Case-law concerning summer houses on the Baltic coast

41.  In a decision of 21 December 2010 in civil case no. 3K-3-552/2010 the Supreme Court examined a request to establish facts of legal significance that twenty-six summer houses and two other buildings had been built lawfully in 1967-68 and 1985. The claimant submitted that the construction permit and the decision to declare the buildings suitable for use had been lost. The Supreme Court rejected the request, finding that the claimant had not proved that the construction had been lawful.

42.  In a decision of 20 February 2017 in civil case no. 3K-3-52-916/2017 the Supreme Court examined a request to acknowledge that the claimants had acquired a summer house and two other buildings, built in 1967-68, by way of acquisitive prescription. The Supreme Court emphasised that ownership of buildings could be obtained by way of acquisitive prescription only if the construction had complied with the law, and that unlawful buildings could not be owned as property. It found that the claimants had not proved that the buildings had been declared suitable for use in accordance with the law which had been in force at the material time, and rejected the claim.

43.  In a decision of 10 March 2017 in civil case no. e3K-3-120-695/2017 the Supreme Court examined a request to establish facts of legal significance that eleven summer houses and an outdoor kitchen had been built lawfully, that the claimant had owned them since 1968 and that they were the claimant’s lawful property. The claimant submitted that the documents proving the lawfulness of the construction had been lost, but that the authorities had never declared the buildings to be unlawfully built. The Supreme Court rejected the claim. It found that the claimant had not proved that the buildings had been built after obtaining a construction permit or that they had been declared suitable for use. In the absence of these documents, interim decisions taken by the authorities did not demonstrate that the construction had been lawful.

COMPLAINT

44.  The applicant complained under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention that she had been precluded from inheriting the summer house.

THE LAW

45.  The applicant complained that the authorities’ refusal to recognise Z.’s property rights to the summer house had precluded her from inheriting it. She relied on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention, which reads:

“Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law.

The preceding provisions shall not, however, in any way impair the right of a State to enforce such laws as it deems necessary to control the use of property in accordance with the general interest or to secure the payment of taxes or other contributions or penalties.”The parties’ submissionsThe Government

46.  The Government submitted that Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention was inapplicable ratione materiae, because Z. could not have had a legitimate expectation that the summer house was his lawfully obtained property, and thus the impugned decisions had not constituted an interference with his, or the applicant’s, property rights.

47.  They submitted that, at the time of the construction, the law had prohibited the allocation of plots of land to individuals for building summer houses (see paragraphs 31 and 33 above). Only legal entities could be granted the right to establish leisure camps and to build light temporary structures thereon (see paragraph 34 above). Furthermore, there had been an absolute prohibition on building summer houses in the Šventoji area (see paragraph 35 above). In such circumstances, it was immaterial that company L. had allowed Z. to build a summer house on the company’s land, because it had not had the right to grant such a permission.

48.  Moreover, even assuming that Z. had had the right to build a summer house on the company’s land, he should have obtained a construction permit beforehand and the finished building should have been declared suitable for use (see paragraphs 32 and 37 above). However, there was no proof that those steps had been completed and that the relevant documents had been lost, as he had alleged. The fact that the summer house had been inventoried did not prove that the construction had been lawful, because unlawfully built structures could be inventoried as well.

49.  The Government also submitted that the taxes paid by Z. had been related to the factual use of the public land and not to ownership of any buildings. Furthermore, the tax declarations indicated that the address of the plot for which the taxes were paid was Kopų str. 36; however, that was the address of the camp, whereas the summer house itself did not have an address (see paragraph 29 above). It was therefore possible that Z. had been paying taxes for an entirely different object, and his heirs had the right to request the authorities to return the amounts paid.

50.  In addition, the Government pointed out that the summer house was situated in the Baltic sea resort town of Šventoji, on the main street which ran parallel to the seaside. That area was near a registered cultural heritage site and the law prohibited any activities that would impair the visibility of that site. However, hundreds of similar summer houses had been built in that area during the Soviet occupation, by exploiting the flaws of that system, and many of them had not been properly registered (see paragraphs 11-13 above). If all of them were recognised as lawful and registered in the Real Estate Register, that would impair the development of Šventoji as an attractive resort. For that reason, the Lithuanian authorities had been taking action to remove the unlawful structures from public land (see paragraph 14 above).

51.  Lastly, the Government submitted that Z. had not been sufficiently diligent when attempting to legalise the construction. He had found out in 1979-80 that the summer house had not been registered (see paragraph 9 above), but had not made any effort to rectify the situation until 2012 (see paragraph 15 above).The applicant

52.  The applicant submitted that the summer house had not been an individual construction but that it had formed part of the leisure camp established by company L., and thus its construction had been in accordance with the law (see paragraph 34 above).

53.  Furthermore, she contended that there was sufficient evidence that the construction had been coordinated with the authorities. The summer house had been inventoried and a technical file had been compiled, and that had led Z. to believe that his property rights had been properly established. Other documents proving his ownership had been lost through no fault of his own and it had been impossible to retrieve them because the archives no longer kept documents from the period in question (see paragraph 18 above). In addition, he had paid taxes for the use of the land on which the summer house had been built – the applicant argued that the only legal basis for paying them had been the ownership of the summer house. The taxes had been collected by the public authorities, which demonstrated that they had been fully aware of the presence of the summer house and had accepted its lawfulness. Indeed, the applicant, Z. and their family had used the summer house openly and in good faith for more than forty years and during that time the authorities had not taken any action against the supposedly unlawful building.

54.  She also submitted that some individuals who owned similar summer houses in the area had succeeded in having their property rights registered in the Real Estate Register and there were no legitimate grounds to justify the different treatment of the summer house built by Z. Lastly, she contended that the summer house did not interfere with the attractiveness of the Šventoji resort because it was properly maintained.The Court’s assessmentWhether there has been an interference with the applicant’s “possessions”

55.  The first question which the Court needs to address is whether the summer house constituted Z.’s “possessions” within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention, thereby creating a legitimate expectation for the applicant, who was her late husband’s heir, to inherit it. The relevant general principles concerning the concepts of “possessions” and “legitimate expectations” under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 have been summarised in Radomilja and Others v. Croatia ([GC], nos. 37685/10 and 22768/12, §§ 142-43, 20 March 2018, and the cases cited therein).

56.  The Government submitted that neither the applicant nor Z. could have had a legitimate expectation that the summer house was their lawful property because it had been built in breach of the relevant legal requirements (see paragraphs 46-48 above).

57.  In the proceedings before the domestic courts, Z. argued that the summer house had been built in accordance with the law – that he had obtained a construction permit and that the finished building had been declared suitable for use, but that the relevant documents had been lost (see paragraphs 17 and 25 above). However, the courts dismissed the possibility that such documents had ever been issued, on the grounds that construction of that kind had been explicitly prohibited by the law at the time (see paragraphs 24 and 28 above).

58.  In her observations before the Court, the applicant also argued that the summer house had constituted part of the leisure camp established by Z.’s employer, and thus its construction had been lawful (see paragraph 52 above). However, Z. did not raise that argument before the domestic courts (see paragraphs 17, 23 and 25 above), and therefore the Court will not take it into consideration.

59.  The Court reiterates that it is not its function to deal with errors of fact or law allegedly committed by a national court unless, and in so far as, they may have infringed rights and freedoms protected by the Convention (see, among many other authorities, García Ruiz v. Spain [GC], no. 30544/96, § 28, ECHR 1999‑I). In other words, the Court cannot question the assessment of the domestic authorities unless there is clear evidence of arbitrariness (see, among many other authorities, Sisojeva and Others v. Latvia (striking out) [GC], no. 60654/00, § 89, ECHR 2007-I). In the present case, it sees no evidence of such arbitrariness and has no reason to question the conclusion reached by the domestic courts that the construction of the summer house did not comply with the law in force at the material time.

60.  However, the Court has previously accepted that even unlawfully built dwellings could, in certain circumstances, constitute “possessions” within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (see Öneryıldız v. Turkey [GC], no. 48939/99, §§ 127-29, ECHR 2004‑XII). In the present case, it observes that the summer house was built in 1972, the applicant’s family used it for more than forty years, and there is no indication that during that entire time the authorities took any action with regard to its possible unlawfulness (see paragraphs 7, 14 and 53 above). Furthermore, it has not been disputed that during the entire period in question Z. paid taxes to the State and that for at least certain periods those taxes appeared to be related to the ownership of buildings (see paragraph 10 above). The Court takes note of the Government’s submissions, as well as the submissions made by the authorities in the domestic proceedings, that those taxes had been paid solely for renting land from the State (see paragraphs 22 and 49 above). Nonetheless, having considered all the aforementioned circumstances taken together, it is prepared to accept that the applicant’s proprietary interest in peaceful enjoyment of the summer house was sufficiently established to amount to a “possession” within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention (see, mutatis mutandis, Depalle v. France ([GC], no. 34044/02, §§ 67-68, ECHR 2010).

61.  Consequently, the Court finds that the refusal by the domestic authorities to recognise the summer house as Z.’s lawful property, which in turn precluded the applicant from inheriting it, constituted an interference with the applicant’s right to the peaceful enjoyment of her possessions.Whether the interference was in accordance with Article 1 of Protocol No. 1

62.  The relevant general principles concerning the right of peaceful enjoyment of possessions have been summarised in Depalle (cited above, §§ 62-63, 77-78 and 83-84, and the cases cited therein).

63.  The Court firstly turns to the lawfulness of the impugned interference. It has already found that there were no grounds to question the conclusion reached by the domestic courts that the construction of the summer house had not complied with the legal requirements which had been in force at the relevant time (see paragraph 59 above). Under the domestic law, buildings which have been built unlawfully cannot be considered as lawful property (see paragraphs 39 and 40 above). Therefore, the Court is satisfied that the refusal by the domestic courts to acknowledge the summer house as Z.’s lawful property was in accordance with the law.

64.  With regard to the aim sought by the impugned interference, the Government submitted that the denial of official registration to the summer houses which had been built on the Baltic coast during the Soviet occupation, and their eventual removal, was necessary in order to protect the ecologically and culturally valuable coastal area and to ensure its proper development (see paragraph 50 above). The Court has accepted on many occasions that measures aimed at environmental conservation, including the protection of coastal areas, corresponded to the public interest (see N.A. and Others v. Turkey, no. 37451/97, § 40, ECHR 2005‑X; Depalle, cited above, § 81; and Kristiana Ltd. v. Lithuania, no. 36184/13, §§ 104-05, 6 February 2018). It is therefore satisfied that the impugned interference pursued a legitimate aim.

65.  It remains to be assessed whether a fair balance was achieved between the demands of the general interest and the protection of the applicant’s rights. The Court acknowledges that the applicant and her family used the summer house for a long time, without any measures being taken by the authorities. At the same time, it is mindful of the difficulties faced by the domestic authorities in their attempts to protect the area of the Šventoji resort, in view of the number of similar summer houses which had been built on the Baltic coast during the Soviet occupation, their unclear legal status and the difficulty in identifying their owners (see paragraphs 11-13 and 50 above). In such circumstances, the Court considers that the delay in notifying the owners, including Z., that their summer houses were unlawful, could be justified (see, mutatis mutandis, Depalle, cited above, § 86).

66.  The Court also observes that the case-law of the Supreme Court, insofar as presented by the parties, appears to be consistent in refusing to recognise such summer houses as lawful in the absence of proper supporting documents (see paragraphs 41-43 above). Indeed, the applicant has not referred to any legal basis, either in statutory law or in case-law, under which an unlawfully built building may become a lawful object of property by virtue of prolonged inaction by the authorities.

67.  Furthermore, as agreed by the parties, Z. learned in 1979-80 that the summer house had not been registered (see paragraph 9 above), although such registration was required by law (see paragraphs 36 and 38 above). In the Court’s view, from that date it ought to have been clear to Z. that his property rights had not been properly recognised. However, there is no indication that he made any effort to register the summer house, or to retrieve the allegedly lost documents proving his ownership, until 2012 (see paragraph 15 above), all the while continuing to use the summer house and to pay taxes. Accordingly, the Court considers that the situation in which Z. eventually found himself was partly created by his own lack of diligence (see, mutatis mutandis, Kaminskas v. Lithuania, no. 44817/18, §§ 58-59, 4 August 2020).

68.  Therefore, it being established that the construction of the summer house did not comply with the law in force at the relevant time, and taking into account Z.’s knowledge of the absence of its official registration, as well as the importance to the public interest of protecting the ecologically and culturally important coastal area, the Court finds that the impugned interference with the applicant’s property rights cannot be regarded as disproportionate.

69.  It follows that the applicant’s complaint under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 is manifestly ill-founded and must be declared inadmissible, in accordance with Article 35 §§ 3 (a) and 4 of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,

Declares the application inadmissible.

Done in English and notified in writing on 1 July 2021.

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Hasan BakırcıCarlo Ranzoni
Deputy RegistrarPresident

 

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