On 28 May 2026 the Constitutional Court handed down Judgment No. 35-P on a complaint by Ms Ivankova, giving a constitutional-law interpretation of paragraph 1 of Article 234 of the Civil Code (acquisitive prescription).
The facts: the woman had been registered as living in her stepfather's flat since 1971. After his death in 1991 the flat passed to a public owner as heirless property. For 30+ years that owner did nothing: it did not evict her, it did not have the flat cleared, and it did not move in people in need of housing.
She applied for recognition of her ownership of the flat, but the courts refused, holding that her possession had not been in good faith, because she knew that there was a public owner.
The Constitutional Court sided with the applicant:
• knowledge that you have no ground for possession, and that the owner is a public entity, does not of itself deprive the possessor of good faith;
• prolonged inaction by a public authority (it does not bear the burden of maintaining the property, it does not react to open possession by someone else, and there are no registered leases) may be treated as a loss of interest in the property and a de facto renunciation of rights.
The Court, however, expressly set a number of limits:
1. possession that arose from obviously unlawful and malicious acts (theft, forgery of documents, violence, corruption) is not protected;
2. the possessor who relies on the passage of time is expected to take the initiative: if the owner is known, the possessor must take steps to find out what the owner claims and, in relation to public property, must clearly and unambiguously declare his or her possession to the competent authority;
3. what is recognised as good faith is not just any conduct, but the conduct ordinarily expected in the community of a person whose title is not in doubt;
4. particular emphasis is placed on residential premises, and on a family tie between the possessor and the deceased owner who himself let the possessor into the flat. This is not a universal indulgence for any "squatter".
The Constitutional Court's reasoning is clear, and in this particular case it looks fair. But there are questions which, in my view, the Judgment leaves open, and they are quite dangerous.
The line between "the public owner has lost interest" and "a private owner was for a time unable to deal with the property" is not drawn clearly enough. The Ivankova case concerned an inactive public entity which has a direct legal duty to identify heirless property and to formalise it. But the language of a "loss of interest", and of the owner's inaction, can, on a literal reading, extend to situations involving ordinary private owners who are absent for objective reasons.
Suppose someone knows that the owner has gone abroad and for a long time cannot deal with the property, occupies it, "openly possesses" it for 15 years, and then comes to court for ownership, relying on this same position of the Constitutional Court. In that case everything turns on the court's assessment of the circumstances taken together. And we have already seen more than once, including in high-profile cases of recent times, how courts apply a legal position without going into its meaning, and one error is then reproduced all the way up the system.
The upshot is that the decision in the particular case is fair. But turning the position into a general rule calls for caution: the Unified State Register of Real Estate (EGRN) must remain reliable, and good faith must be something that is actually tested, not presumed in favour of whoever can tell a court a polished story about "open possession".
For now, this protects those who act in good faith. But without clear boundaries, the risk of it becoming a loophole is entirely real. Sergei Pivovarchik, managing partner of Consul Group, comments.
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