Mortgage repaid, encumbrance still registered. What can you do?

Tetiana is an internally displaced person from Donetsk region who found safety in Lviv region. Her apartment remains in temporarily occupied territory, and she is concerned that it may be damaged or destroyed as a result of hostilities.

To be eligible for compensation in the event that the apartment is damaged or destroyed, information about the property had to be entered into the State Register of Rights to Immovable Property. However, when she applied for state registration, she encountered a problem: the apartment was subject to an encumbrance - a prohibition on disposal and a registered mortgage. Although Tetiana had fully repaid the loan that gave rise to the mortgage many years earlier, the corresponding records had never been removed from the register.

Tetiana sought legal assistance from the charitable organisation Caritas Mariupol. A lawyer from the organisation helped her obtain confirmation from the bank that the loan had been fully repaid. At first glance, this appeared sufficient to remove the encumbrance. In practice, however, the situation proved more complicated: several notaries in Lviv region, where Tetiana currently resides, refused to assist her. Even an official clarification issued by the Ministry of Justice confirming that any notary could remove the encumbrance did not resolve the issue.

With the support of a lawyer from Caritas Mariupol, Tetiana contacted a notary in Kramatorsk. This time, the issue was successfully resolved - the prohibition on disposal was lifted, and the mortgage record was removed from the State Register of Rights to Immovable Property. The financial aspect also presented a challenge, so the charitable organisation provided financial assistance to cover the notarial fees. As a result, if her property is damaged in the future, Tetiana will be able to participate in the available state compensation programmes.

* The image is illustrative and does not depict the specific events described in this story.

Access to free legal aid in Dnipropetrovsk region became possible thanks to the partnership between the Charitable organisation "Caritas Mariupol " and the Danish Refugee Council, with funding provided by the European Union.