6.  The applicant was born in 1938 and lives in Yalta, the Autonomous Republic of Crimea.
7.  On 11 October 1997, following a purchase agreement, the applicant became owner of flat no. 2 at 1 Pushkinska Street in Yalta (“the Pushkinska flat”) in a multi-dwelling building which had been built before 1917 (“the Pushkinska building”) and was a municipal property. The flat had one room and measured 37.5 sq. m. According to the applicant, she did not reside in the flat and rented it out in the summer as it was located in the historic part of the city centre and next to the beach.
8.  At the beginning of 2005, all flats in the Pushkinska building – with the exception of two which belonged to the applicant and K.– had been bought by a private construction company, JSC Zodiak-tsentr (hereinafter “the Company”).
9.  On 22 September 2005 the Executive Committee of the Yalta City Council (“the Executive Committee”) approved a report on the examination of the Pushkinska building issued by an interdepartmental commission set up by the Executive Committee. The report suggested that the building was in poor technical condition with its carrying walls unsafe. On the basis of the report, the Executive Committee classified the building as a dangerous structure and found that it was under a threat of collapse (“Decree 1349”). No copies of the report and Decree 1349 have been made available to the Court.
10.  On 5 October 2005 Yalta City Council (“the Council”) and the Executive Committee concluded an agreement with the Company which provided, inter alia, that the Company would purchase two flats to move the applicant and the owner of another apartment from the dangerous building in exchange for granting to the Company title over the applicant’s and the other person’s flats and then over the building as a whole (“the agreement”). The Council and the Executive Committee further undertook to take measures to evict the applicant from the dangerous building, to authorise the Company to demolish the Pushkinska building, and to grant a construction permit. The agreement was approved by the Council during its 19 October 2005 session. According to the applicant she was not aware of the agreement at the time.
11.  On an unspecified date in 2006 the Council adopted the general city development plan which, according to the applicant, envisaged the renovation of the Pushkinska building (підлягає реконструкціі (відновленню)), with construction of an additional floor. No copy of the plan has been made available to the Court.
12.  To comply with the agreement, the Company purchased flat no. 1 at 23 Sosnova Street (“the Sosnova flat”) in Yalta as a replacement for the applicant. The flat measured 57.7 sq. m, had two rooms and was located away from Yalta city centre. The Council and the Executive Committee refused to take the apartment into municipal ownership. In this view, the Company instituted court proceedings against the Council and the Executive Committee for their failure to comply with the terms of the agreement. In judgments of 6 June 2006 and 10 October 2006 the Commercial Court of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the Sevastopol Commercial Court of Appeal respectively obliged the defendants to comply with their obligations under the agreement. On 22 March 2007 the Sosnova flat was transferred into municipal ownership.
13.  On 31 May 2007 the Executive Committee passed a decision by which it, inter alia, offered the Sosnova flat to the applicant. No copy of the relevant decree has been made available to the Court.
14.  On 16 June 2007, in a letter, the Executive Committee invited the applicant to appear, by 1 July 2007 at the latest, before the relevant body and obtain the title deeds (ордер) to the Sosnova flat. The applicant did not respond to the offer as she believed the authorities’ demand had no legal basis.
15.  On 17 July 2007 the Executive Committee applied to the Yalta City Court to have the applicant evicted and her title to the Pushkinska flat terminated, her moved to the Sosnova flat and her property rights over the latter flat established. It relied on Articles 109, 110 and 112 of the Housing Code and Articles 321 § 2 of the Civil Code as the legal grounds for the claim (see paragraphs 31 and 32 below). The Executive Committee noted, in particular, that the Pushkinska building was under the threat of collapse and that, as the body responsible for observance of the technical condition of buildings and rehousing of residents from dangerous ones, it did not wish to be answerable for any grave consequences which the dangerousness of the Pushkinska building might cause.
16.  On 4 October 2007 the Yalta City Court allowed the Executive Committee’s application.
17.  On an unspecified date the Court of Appeal of the Autonomous Republic of Crimea (“the Court of Appeal”) remitted the case for fresh consideration to the first-instance court, noting that the Council, as the owner of the Sosnova flat, had not been involved in the proceedings.
18.  On 4 April 2008 the Council joined the proceedings as a co-plaintiff and supported the Executive Committee’s claims.
19.  On 9 April 2008 the Yalta City Court found against the applicant. It annulled the applicant’s title to the Pushkinska flat, ordered her eviction and rehousing in the Sosnova flat and vested her with the title to the latter flat. The court made the following findings: (a) it was not in dispute between the parties that the Pushkinska building was a municipal property and was maintained by a municipal company, and that it was the Executive Committee’s task under the relevant laws to exercise control over the safety of buildings irrespective of their form of ownership; (b) in carrying out this obligation, the Executive Committee found that the building had been under the threat of collapse and these findings had been valid and had not been appealed against by any interested person. The agreement and the Council’s decision of 19 October 2005 approving it were likewise valid; (c) pursuant to Article 112 of the Housing Code the Executive Committee had been obliged to provide the applicant with a replacement dwelling, which it had done, but the applicant had refused to move on a voluntary basis without providing any reasons; and (d) pursuant to the agreement, which had been approved by the Council, the Pushkinska building was to be demolished, and not renovated, as claimed by the applicant, which made her return to the property impossible; she thus had to be evicted from that flat and moved to another apartment with her title to the Pushkinska flat annulled by the court, which would be in compliance with Article 346 § 2 of the Civil Code.
20.  The Yalta City Court further found that the Sosnova flat constituted adequate compensation for the applicant in respect of the Pushkinska flat. It had more rooms and space than the Pushkinska flat and was in an appropriate condition and in the same city. The court also noted that the market value of the Sosnova flat, according to a sale agreement dated 2005, was higher than the starting price for the whole Pushkinska building. It thus concluded that the applicant’s interests had been protected in full.
21.  The applicant appealed, stating, inter alia, that the deprivation of her property was unlawful. In particular, the Pushkinska flat was her private property and not that of the State and thus the provisions of the Housing Code, cited by the trial court, had been inapplicable to her situation and could not have served a basis for annulment of her title to the property. Article 346 § 2 of the Civil Code was a reference provision which specified that a property right could be terminated in “other cases provided for by the law” but the court had failed to specify any legal provision providing for this “other case”. She further argued that there had been no public need behind deprivation of her flat but only private business interests, given that the title to the Pushkinska flat after her rehousing was to be given to the Company. Even assuming that the building was in poor structural condition, no proper decision existed suggesting that it would be subject to demolition. The applicant referred in that connection to Governmental Decree no. 189 of 26 April 1984, in accordance with which as it was within the Regional Council’s ambit to decide, on the basis of a proposal by a city council, whether a building should be demolished or restored and stated that the Council had thus acted ultra vires when it had allowed the Company to demolish the building in the agreement. She also relied on the general city development plan, which had been adopted a year after the agreement, pursuant to which the Pushkinska building was to be renovated, with an additional floor constructed, but not demolished. She argued that her property thus would remain extant.
22.  The applicant further alleged that she, as the owner of the Pushkinska flat, had not been involved in any way in choosing the form of the compensation for her flat. She had not been a party to the agreement and at the time had not been informed at all of any intentions to void her property rights over the Pushkinska flat and to evict her. Then she was just presented with the fact that she had to move to an apartment chosen for her by the company, without her consent. The offered flat had not been of the same value as the Pushkinska flat and had not compensated her in full for her losses. She referred to the location of the Sosnova flat, the impossibility to profit from renting it out, and its poor general condition. In support, she provided an expert report, which stated that the building at no. 23 Sosnova Street was situated in a zone of active ground subsidence and that urgent and expensive construction work was necessary to prevent further damage. The applicant also disputed the fairness of the calculations used by the first-instance court, referring to the fact that, just before the Pushkinska building had been declared dangerous, the Company had bought several flats from the applicant’s neighbours, which had been in poor condition, for very high prices – much higher than the building price referred to by the Council. Lastly, she argued that she could not have property rights over the Sosnova flat imposed on her against her will.
23.  On 17 June 2008 the Court of Appeal upheld the judgment of 9 April 2008. It reiterated that it had been correctly established by the first-instance court that the Pushkinska building had been under the threat of collapse and that in this situation, pursuant to Article 112 of the Housing Code, the applicant must be evicted and provided by the Executive Committee with another dwelling. It noted that the Executive Committee had complied with its obligation and by its Decision of 31 May 2007 had assigned a replacement dwelling to the applicant.
24.  The Court of Appeal then rejected as unsubstantiated the applicant’s argument that the Executive Committee’s demands had breached her property rights. It pointed out in that connection that Article 41 of the Constitution allowed deprivation of property in exceptional cases of public necessity, on the grounds of and by the procedure established by law, and – the court emphasised – on the condition of advance and complete compensation of its value. It noted that the Sosnova flat had complied with the requirements of Article 113 of the Housing Code and was more spacious than the Pushkinska flat. The applicant’s rehousing in that flat was thus not in breach of her rights but in her own interests and her arguments to the contrary were unsubstantiated.
25.  On 18 August 2008 the Supreme Court of Ukraine rejected an application for leave to appeal on points of law from the applicant.
26.  The applicant was unsuccessful in her attempts to reopen the proceedings under newly discovered and exceptional circumstances.
27.  On 26 August 2008 the applicant and her son were evicted from the Pushkinska flat and the documents confirming their property right over the Sosnova flat were served.
28.  On 9 July 2009 the Executive Committee granted the title to the Pushkinska flat to the Company.
29.  In 2018, in her comments on the Government’s observations, the applicant informed the Court that the building at 1 Pushkinska Street had not been demolished but renovated, with an additional floor added on top, and had been converted into a privately owned hotel.