Comprehensive assistance with the registration of ownership of already destroyed housing.

In July 2024, Oleksandr, a lawyer at Caritas Mariupol, a DRC partner, was approached by Olha, a pensioner and IDP from Soledar, Donetsk Oblast. Her home was destroyed as a result of hostilities.

In order to receive compensation for the destroyed housing, it needs to be registered in the State Register of Real Property Rights (SRRP). Ms. Olha tried to do this on her own, but was refused because the deed of gift of the house specified only the living space, not the total area. The woman lost her technical passport, which could confirm the total area, when she urgently left the city. The pensioner no longer hoped to solve this problem, as she had repeatedly faced refusals.

The lawyer of Caritas Mariupol suggested restoring the technical passport based on the data stored in databases and registers, and the staff of the Bureau of Technical Inventory prepared a document with the necessary data on the living space. In addition to legal aid, Ms. Olha received financial assistance to pay for the preparation of the documents, as she could not afford such expenses: the cost of preparing a technical passport for a house can reach UAH 5,000.

As a result of the comprehensive assistance, the pensioner registered her ownership of the house with the State Register of Property Rights, and now she has the opportunity to receive compensation for the destroyed housing.

The provision of free legal aid in the Dnipropetrovs'k region was made possible thanks to the cooperation of Caritas Mariupol with the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) and funding from the European Union.