Common property in household communities

Couple of months ago, in November 2016, the Constitutional Court of Russia issued a decision on a controversial topic of legal regime of property which is due to serve to different households (such as roads or water pipelines) in ‘summer cottage’ communities (Russian text is availably here). Unfortunately, the Court skirted the main problem, answering the questions formally and avoiding delving into the essence of the relationships in question. So, what was it all about?

Currency fall is not hardship is Russia

Several days ago the Supreme Court of Russia issues its first quarterly review of its most important decisions, which had been made recently (Russian text is available on the official web site). The eighth judgment was about whether a plummeting fall of Russian currency because of Crimea crisis could be considered as hardship and thus led to conversion of a loan contract. The Court unsurprisingly gave a negative answer, confirming general reluctance to use ‘rebus sic stantibus’ doctrine. However some remarks in the ruling seem to leave a door open to use this clause as a ground for contract modification…

The new law on real estate registry

On the 1^st of January 2017 the new Law of Real Estate Registry took effect, abolishing a large quantity of acts which had been enacted since 1998 when general rules in this question were provided for the first time. As the law of 1998 was the the starting point for real estate registry in modern Russian history, it had been amended enormously often thus the general revision seems to be quite a reasonable step to take.

A landmark decision on real property

Few days ago The Supreme Court of Russia made a remarkable decision on real estate, concerning some issues of what is block of flats as an object and how the right on a plot of land beneath it depend on the right on a flat (Russian text is available here).