VERLAN v. THE REPUBLIC OF MOLDOVA

FIFTH SECTION

DECISION

Application no. 45396/13
Alexandru VERLAN
against the Republic of Moldova

The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting on 4 December 2025 as a Chamber composed of:

 Georgios A. Serghides, President,
 Gilberto Felici,
 Diana Sârcu, judges,
and Martina Keller, Deputy Section Registrar,

Having regard to the above application lodged on 19 June 2013,

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, Mr Alexandru Verlan, is a Moldovan national, who was born in 1978 and lives in Pîrîta. He was represented before the Court by Mr M. Postu and Mr A. Cojocaru, lawyers practising in Chișinău.

2.  The Moldovan Government (“the Government”) were represented by their acting Agent, Mr D. Măimescu.

3.  The facts of the case, as submitted by the parties, may be summarised as follows.

4.  On 9 November 1994 V. obtained, through donation, a house and a separate plot of land useable as a garden (“the disputed land”) in the village of Pîrîta in the Republic of Moldova. On 27 May 2003 the Pîrîta mayor’s office (hereinafter “the local authority”) issued V. title deeds confirming his property rights over the two pieces of real estate. On 28 May 2003 they were registered in V.’s name with the Strășeni Territorial Cadastral Office (“the TCO”) under a provisional number. On 29 May 2003 the TCO issued a document confirming V.’s property rights over the house as well as the plot of land, indicating their cadastral numbers and surface area.

5.  On 29 May 2003 V. sold the two pieces of real estate to the applicant, who registered his property rights over them with the TCO on 2 June 2003.

6.  In December 2005 the TCO issued S. a title deed over a plot of land with a different provisional cadastral number. According to the applicant, that plot included the disputed land.

7.  In 2007 a large-scale registration of land took place in the village. As a result, S.’s land was issued a definitive number and a description in the TCO geographic database. The disputed land was not identified in that database and was not issued a definitive number. According to a letter dated 21 January 2011 the local authority informed the applicant that the disputed land had mistakenly been included in the plot of land registered as the property of S. It reaffirmed its position that a mistake had been committed during the large-scale land registration between 2006 and 2007. The applicant’s plot of land was not in the TCO geographic database (describing the limits of each plot of land with reference to neighbouring plots of land and other fixed objects) and as a result had been included in the plot of land registered in S.’s name.

8.  On 15 March 2010 the applicant initiated court proceedings against S., asking her to refrain from hindering his use of his land. He also identified the local authority and the TCO as intervening parties on the side of the defendant and asked for his property rights over the disputed land to be registered by the TCO. The applicant amended his court action on 25 January 2011, indicating T.P. (the person who in the meantime had bought S.’s land) as the defendant and the TCO as an intervener. He asked the court to order T.P. not to impede his use of his land, as well as to order the TCO to properly register his property rights over the relevant plot of land. During the proceedings the applicant asked the TCO to carry out an expert evaluation in order to determine whether the two plots of land overlapped and whether his land could be registered in the TCO geographic database. On 16 June 2011 the TCO replied that since the applicant’s land was not included in the geographic database, it could not determine whether the two plots of land overlapped.

9.  On 29 June 2011 the court ordered an expert report in order to determine whether the two plots of land overlapped and if so to what extent, and whether the applicant’s land could be included into the TCO geographic database. The court ordered the TCO to carry out that assessment. On 23 November 2011 the TCO replied that the TCO geographic database did not include information about the applicant’s plot of land, which made it impossible to determine whether it overlapped with the land belonging to T.P.

10.  In a judgment dated 6 March 2012 the Dubăsari District Court rejected the applicant’s claims as unfounded. It found, in particular, that since the applicant had not proven that T.P.’s properly registered land overlapped with his own, she could not be ordered to stop impeding his access to his land. With regard to the applicant’s second claim, namely for the TCO to register his property rights, the court found that no one had challenged his property rights, which had not been deleted from the TCO register and thus did not require being re-registered there. The court concluded that neither V. nor the applicant had ever finalised the registration of the property rights as required by law by asking and paying for the boundaries of the plot of land to be established, with the resulting introduction of those data in the geographic database. Thus, while his property rights had not been contested, the physical placement of his plot of land had not yet been determined.

11.  That judgment was upheld by the Chișinău Court of Appeal on 1 November 2012 and the Supreme Court of Justice on 17 April 2013.

COMPLAINT

12.  The applicant complained under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention that the domestic courts had refused to protect his property rights by favouring the registration of another person’s rights over the disputed land.

THE LAW

13.  The applicant’s complaint concerns the alleged erroneous registration by the authorities of two individuals’ title to the same plot of land and the failure to protect his rights guaranteed under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention.

14.  The Government argued that the applicant had failed to lodge a separate court action against the TCO in order to obtain the rectification of the relevant records in the real estate register. They submitted a copy of a domestic decision whereby such a court action had corrected the problem. Moreover, his complaint about the errors in the geographic representation of the disputed land had not been the subject of examination at the domestic level. While both the applicant and S. had obtained provisional registration numbers for their respective plots of land, only S. had applied for a permanent number after 2007, while the applicant had failed to do so. The applicant’s land lacked geographic information, a cadastral plan and a delimitation of its boundaries, elements which could be determined after cadastral work for which he had not asked. This would make it possible to determine whether the applicant’s land overlapped with that registered by T.P. Moreover, the local authority had expressed its willingness to issue him land from the reserve fund, but he did not pursue that option. The applicant thus did not take any action to have his rights registered after 2007.

15.  The applicant submitted that he had complied with the legal requirements at the time of the purchase and registered the disputed land with the TCO. Since it was not disputed that he had obtained the property rights over the land in question, any further court action against the TCO would have been unsuccessful.

16.  The Court notes that the domestic courts and the Government did not deny the applicant’s property rights over a plot of land in the relevant village. The applicant argued that his rights referred to a specific plot of land, which had been properly registered, but it had subsequently been included in the land registered in T.P.’s name. However, as determined by the courts, he did not provide any evidence that this was indeed the case, since his land lacked a detailed description in the TCO geographic database.

17.  The Court finds, in line with the domestic courts’ assessment, that determining whether the authorities had erred by including his land in that of T.P.’s necessitated specific measurements and delimitation of the physical borders of both plots of land. The first-instance court explained to the applicant that it was his responsibility to ask for those measurements and to pay for them. The Court considers that only if, as a result of those measurements, it became clear that the two plots of land overlapped – and if so to what extent – would the domestic courts have a legal basis for deciding which of the owners’ rights needed to continue being registered. While the applicant did enquire with the TCO about the possibility of including the disputed land in its geographic database, and even obtained a court order to obtain an expert report about that possibility, the TCO clearly informed him and the court that it was unable to provide any conclusion in the absence of the relevant delimitation work carried out on site. Thus, even assuming that the TCO could be considered as a co-defendant despite only being designated as an intervening party, the court action as formulated by the applicant – of registering his right – had no real object, as his right had already been registered. By contrast, he has not taken the necessary steps to confirm the alleged overlapping of the two plots of land, which would allow the courts to solve the issue.

In the light of the foregoing, the Court considers that, insofar as there may have been an interference by a State authority with the applicant’s rights under Article 1 of Protocol no. 1 to the Convention or an issue regarding the State’s positive obligations under that provision, the application must be dismissed on the ground that domestic remedies have not been exhausted, pursuant to Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention.

For these reasons, the Court, unanimously,

Declares the application inadmissible.

Done in English and notified in writing on 15 January 2026.

 Martina Keller Georgios A. Serghides
 Deputy Registrar President