4.  The applicants were born in 1966, 1971, 1993 and 1996 respectively. The second applicant is the former spouse of the first applicant and the third and the fourth applicants are their children. The first, the third and the fourth applicants live in Lviv. The second applicant had his registered residence in Lviv as at the time when the application was lodged; his current whereabouts are not known.
5.  In August 2001 the second applicant, a military officer at the material time, was provided with a two-room flat for himself and his family in an accommodation hall owned by the Lviv Military Academy. Subsequently all four applicants obtained residence registration with the local authority as tenants of that flat. Since 2001 (and as at the time of the observations exchanges between the parties), the household was paying the relevant maintenance charges and other tenancy-related fees, which were calculated on the premise that the flat was occupied by four persons.
6.  On 28 November 2003 the second applicant was dismissed from military service on grounds of redundancy. The dismissal order stipulated that he was eligible for priority allocation of social housing from the waiting list managed by the Ministry of Defence.
7.  In 2005 the first and the second applicant divorced and the first applicant and her children were placed on the waiting list for social housing managed by the municipal authority.
8.  In August 2011 the Lviv garrison military prosecutor instituted eviction proceedings against the applicants. He referred, essentially, to the fact that the accommodation hall belonged to the Military Academy and was designed for the temporary housing of military personnel. Meanwhile, none of the applicants had any connection to the military or the Military Academy, which owned the building.
9.  On 15 November 2012 the Frankivskyy District Court in Lviv dismissed the prosecutor’s claim. It found that the applicants had lawfully obtained the tenancy in connection with the second applicant’s previous military service. Regard being had to the applicable legal provisions concerning the social protection of former military officers and their families, they could not be evicted from the accommodation hall without first being provided with other housing. In addition to that, the fourth applicant had still been a minor at the material time, and further legislation applicable to the protection of minors warranted the protection of her housing rights.
10.  Following an appeal by the prosecutor, on 17 September 2013 the Lviv Regional Court of Appeal quashed this judgment and ordered the applicants’ eviction. It found that they had settled in the disputed premises without the building owner having taken a formal decision authorising their occupancy and without an occupancy order (“ордер”), having been issued in their favour. Accordingly, the applicants’ occupancy was unlawful ab initio. This fact extinguished the applicability of the legal provisions cited by the first-instance court concerning the social protection of retired military officers, their families and minors.
11.  The applicants lodged a cassation appeal against this judgment. They noted, in particular, that the disputed housing had been their only home for more than ten years and that their eviction would render them homeless. They also submitted that their income level was not sufficient for them to acquire housing at their own expense and that they did not have any family members in Lviv who could offer shelter to them. Their residence was duly registered and they had been dutifully paying all the applicable fees connected with their occupancy of the flat. The fact that the building owner had failed to comply with certain formalities connected with regularising their occupancy was not their fault. In addition, evicting them on this basis should have become time-barred in 2004 (three years after they had moved into the flat). Lastly, the applicants referred to the judgment of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of Kryvitska and Kryvitskyy v. Ukraine (no. 30856/03, judgment of 2 December 2010), and alleged that their eviction would be in breach of the principles established in that judgment, according to which the courts had to assess whether the eviction was necessary in a democratic society.
12.  On 20 November 2013 the Higher Specialised Court of Ukraine dismissed the applicants’ cassation appeal.
13.  Subsequently, enforcement proceedings were instituted with a view to evicting the applicants. The parties have not informed the Court whether the eviction order has been enforced.