Published on 30 September 2024
SECOND SECTION
Application no. 31882/23
Ivan ŠOJAT
against Croatia
lodged on 8 August 2023
communicated on 11 September 2024
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
The application concerns the annulment of a property title on grounds not imputable to the applicant.
In particular, in 1998 the applicant bought a plot of land from a person who was recorded as its owner in the land register.
The legal system of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia distinguished between two types of ownership: private ownership and social ownership (društveno vlasništvo). The owner of property in social ownership was not defined but individuals and legal entities had certain quasi-ownership rights over such property, such as the right to use it (pravo korištenja). By the entry into force of the 1996 Property Act on 1 January 1997 the rights to use socially owned immovable property were ex lege converted into private ownership, former holders of such rights thus becoming the owners of such property.
As regards the land bought by the applicant, in 1988 two holders of the right to use over that land transferred that right to the local authorities in exchange for a compensation. In 1996 the local authorities attempted to record their right to use in the land register, but their application was misplaced by the relevant land registry court.
The right to use over the land at issue thus remained recorded in the land register in the name of its former holders which used that situation to convert that right into the right of ownership when the 1996 Property Act entered into force on 1 January 1997, and to record themselves as the owners of the land.
In 1997 these two individuals sold the land in question to the person from whom the applicant bought it in 1998. These transfers of ownership were duly recorded in the land register.
In 2012 the local authorities brought a civil action against the applicant seeking to be declared the owners of the land in question. They argued that, when the 1996 Property Act had entered into force on 1 January 1997, they had been the holders of the right to use over that land and had thus become its owners by the operation of law. Even though the person from whom the applicant had bought the land had been recorded in the land register as its owner, the applicant could not rely on that information when buying the land. That was so because at the time the principle of trust to the information in the land register had not applied to immovable property which had been in social ownership on 1 January 1997.
The applicant argued that the local authorities had had enough time to record their rights in the land register but had not been sufficiently diligent.
Even though the domestic courts held that the sale-purchase agreement whereby the applicant bought the land from the registered owner was valid, they nevertheless eventually ruled in favour of the local authorities finding that he could not have relied on the principle of trust regarding the information in the land register.
Before the Court the applicant complains under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention that he was deprived of his property fourteen years after he had bought it just because the local authorities had not been sufficiently diligent in recording their ownership in the land register.
QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES
Has the applicant been deprived of his possessions in accordance with the requirements of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention? More specifically, did the domestic courts in the particular circumstances of the applicant’s case strike the requisite fair balance between the general interests of the community and the protection of his property rights (see Gashi v. Croatia, no. 32457/05, §§ 27-43, 13 December 2007; Gladysheva v. Russia, no. 7097/10, §§ 64-83, 6 December 2011; Seregin and Others v. Russia, nos. 31686/16 and 4 others, §§ 89-111, 16 March 2021; Gavrilova and Others v. Russia, no. 2625/17, §§ 69-87, 16 March 2021; and Semenov v. Russia, no. 17254/15, §§ 53-72, 16 March 2021)?