The new property register lacks the boundaries of regions and cities

This creates risks for private owners

The Unified State Register of Real Estate (EGRN) contains only 6.8% of the data on boundaries between regions (26 out of 380), 46% of the data on the boundaries of municipalities, and 14% of the data on the boundaries of settlements, a representative of the Federal Service for State Registration, Cadastre and Cartography (Rosreestr) told Vedomosti.

Only four regions have their boundaries entered in full: Buryatia, Sakha (Yakutia), the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug and Amur Region. The boundaries of Khabarovsk Territory, of Vladimir, Irkutsk, Novgorod and Moscow Regions, and of Moscow, have been entered only in part.

The EGRN contains no information at all on the boundaries between regions located in the North Caucasian, Southern and Volga Federal Districts, Rosreestr writes. There is likewise no information at all on the boundaries of municipalities in Karachay-Cherkessia, the Republic of Crimea, Primorye Territory, Vologda, Irkutsk, Kirov, Kurgan, Magadan, Penza, Rostov and Tomsk Regions, the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, Moscow and Sevastopol.

This has nothing to do with the merger of the two databases (the Unified Register of Rights and the State Real Estate Cadastre) into the new EGRN.

Establishing the boundaries between regions is the duty of the regional authorities, Rosreestr explains in its statement. Rosreestr only enters the data it receives from them. The administrations of neighbouring regions must agree the line of their common boundary, prepare the necessary set of documents and pass it to Rosreestr. Establishing the boundaries is also in a region's interest, because it can widen the tax base by bringing land into circulation, as Rosreestr's statement indicates.

It is a very difficult task, and the difficulty is not only that the regions bear the cost of the cadastral work, notes Alexey Kaminsky, president of the non-profit partnership Expert Council. There are many disputed territories, and there is no procedure for resolving the disputes. The question can be taken up to federal level as well, he explains.

The absence of boundaries creates risks for private owners who bought real estate after a change had been made to a territorial boundary. If a plot was acquired from one region and later passed to another, the transaction may be held invalid,

says Sergei Pivovarchik, director of the tax and legal consulting department of Consul Group.

There is a further problem. Owners of plots on a boundary simply do not know which region's authorities to approach, and often the authorities do not know either, Kaminsky says.

Because of that uncertainty, transactions in plots that lie on the boundaries of regions and cities hardly take place at all. There may be a good many points of dispute around the boundaries of New Moscow,

notes Sergei Pivovarchik.

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