Published on 13 June 2022

SECOND SECTION

Application no. 76473/16 Alexandr BREZGUNOV against the Republic of Moldova lodged on 2 December 2016 communicated on 24 May 2022

SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE

The application concerns the refusal to acknowledge the applicant’s property right over a house and surrounding land, contrary to Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention.

The applicant’s grandmother was allegedly given a plot of land into use in 1945 in order to build a house on it, but it was not formally registered. She built a house and lived in it until her death in 1972. Her daughter (the applicant’s mother) continued living in the house. The applicant claims that since 1972 he also lived in the house and continues living there after his mother’s death in 2005, still without any kind of registration.

In 2012 the applicant asked to be officially registered as the owner of the house and land beneath. This was refused since the local administration was registered as the owner on the basis of a law from the year 2000. The evidence that since 1993 he had paid tax on the house in question was dismissed as irrelevant since the applicant had his official residence in another apartment.

The applicant complains under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention about not being able to fully exercise his ownership rights over the house and land beneath despite being in its effective possession for over 40 years. He also complains of a breach of Article 13 that he did not have an effective remedy in protecting his property right.

QUESTIONS TO THE PARTIES

1. Did the applicant have a “possession”, within the meaning of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention? If so, has there been a violation of that provision? In particular, did the authorities fulfil their positive obligations in respect of the applicant’s de facto possession of the house for many years, possession which has apparently been officially tolerated? ( Öneryıldız v. Turkey [GC], no. 48939/99, §§ 134 et seq. , ECHR 2004 ‑ XII)

The parties are requested to submit evidence of whether the applicant, or anyone else, has actually lived in the relevant house since 1972.

2. Did the applicant have at his disposal effective remedies to protect his alleged property right over the house, as required under Article 13 of the Convention? Was any such remedy effective, within the meaning of that provision? ( Iatridis v. Greece [GC], no. 31107/96, §§ 65 and 66, ECHR 1999 ‑ II)