Immovable property in 24 hours

On January 1st, registration of immovable property transactions grew shorter and now takes one day. A notary, money, some software and perhaps the daring to become one of the first are all that is required. However, there was no excitement.

The event itself seems to be favorable for the buyers and sellers of immovable property: notaries become materially liable parties to the deals. Rosreestr bears no liability for the cleanliness of the title. Realtors have resources for checking such cleanliness, but they have material interest in the deals, and also bear no liability.

Even though the archives are still kept by Rosreestr, the authority practically transfers the function of checking the cleanliness of the title to the private institution of the notaries, while increasing the speed of the procedure.

The Law No. 457-FZ dated 29.12.2014 expanded Article 13 of the Law “On official registration of titles to immovable property and transactions with it” with a new paragraph. Pursuant to the latter, official registration of the titles on the basis of the notarized documents submitted by the notary in the electronic form is done within one business day following the day of acceptance of the documents.

In order to exercise said right, the notary must receive the electronic digital signature according to the legally established procedure, and also install the required software.

Since September 1st of 2013, due to changes to the CCRF, notarization means checking the legality of the deal’s content and the parties’ authority to conclude it. Thus, Rosreestr’s job is reduced to technical operations of introducing the required information in the USRP, and even this process should be sped up with the use of the electronic format of cooperation with the notaries.

In regard to insuring the notary’s civil liability, says Ekaterina Yakovleva, Advocate from the Law Firm "YUST", the minimum amount of the insurance money under such agreement is currently fixed at two million roubles for those notaries, who practice in the cities, and at one and a half million – for those, who work in the countryside. The expert says: “Therefore, in practice cases may occur, when the insurance money will be insufficient to cover the actual losses, while the insurance compensation is given in the amount of the actual losses bot not exceeding the insurance money”. This is yet another argument against considering the notary’s involvement in the transaction some guarantee of protection of interests of the other parties.