5.  The applicant was born in 1934 and lives in Bogdany.
6.  On 26 January 2004 the applicant obtained from the State a deed of title to an agricultural plot of land (an official Land Registry title) based on a decree issued by the Varvynska local administration on 22 December 2003. This amounted to the official registration of her title to the land in accordance with the domestic procedures. At that point the applicant had not filed a request for the boundaries of the plot to be marked out and was not farming the land.
7.  On 26 July 2004 the local administration concluded a lease agreement with the private company B., according to which the company would rent the applicant’s land and pay the rent to the local administration. The applicant was not informed about this agreement. She learnt of the lease agreement only in September 2004, after the private company B. had planted seeds on the land.
8.  On 4 October 2004 the applicant requested the local administration to allow her to establish the boundaries of her land. In this connection, on 19 October 2004, the local administration ordered the termination of the lease agreement with company B. and authorised the applicant to carry out work to mark out of the boundaries of her land.
9.  In July 2005 the company removed its crop from the applicant’s land. On 25 July 2005 amendments were introduced to the lease agreement of 26 July 2004, excluding the applicant’s plot of land from the list of leased lands. From then on the applicant’s land ceased to be a leased property, and company B. has not used it since. In the same month the boundaries of the applicant’s land were established.
10.  On 20 January 2006 the applicant lodged a civil claim with the domestic courts against the local administration and company B. Claiming that the lease agreement of 26 July 2004 infringed her property rights and should have been declared invalid, she sought compensation for the use of the land by company B. She argued that the amount of compensation to be paid to her should correspond to the value of the crop that had been harvested from her land.
11.  On 2 June 2006 the Varva Local Court of Chernigiv Region allowed the applicant’s claim. In particular, the court found that once the applicant had received a title to the plot of land in question, the local administration should not have concluded any agreement concerning the land with other parties. As to the boundaries, the court found that the local administration had unlawfully linked their establishment with the existence of the applicant’s ownership rights. It also noted that despite the fact that the boundaries had not been marked out, the local administration should have learned about the applicant’s title to the land in question from the land registry and local land plans. The court added that after lodging her request on 4 October 2004 for the boundaries of the plot to be marked out, the applicant had tried to accelerate the process by applying to the local administration and other authorities, to no avail. The court concluded that the lease agreement of 26 July 2004 had violated the applicant’s property rights and was to be declared invalid. The court also held that under domestic law the applicant was entitled to compensation for the use of her property equal to the value of the crops taken from her land (29,210 Ukrainian hryvnas (UAH); 4,493 euros (EUR) at the material time). The compensation, in the court’s view, should have been paid to the applicant both by the local administration and by company B., as they were jointly and severally liable for the unauthorised use of the applicant’s land.
12.  The local administration appealed. On 12 September 2006 the Chernigiv Regional Court of Appeal quashed the above-mentioned judgment. The court noted that the use of the applicant’s land by company B. had been lawful since it had been based on the lease agreement. The court further stressed that under Article 125 of the Land Code of Ukraine, the right of the owner of a plot of land to use it arose only once its boundaries had been marked out and after receipt by the owner of the document certifying that right. The appellate court concluded that the applicant was not entitled to compensation as the boundaries of her land had been marked out only in July 2005; as she could not have used the land before that date, she could not claim an interest in the harvested crop.
13.  The applicant appealed on points of law. On 4 January 2007 the Supreme Court of Ukraine refused to examine the merits of the applicant’s appeal on points of law, finding that it was frivolous.
14.  On an unspecified date the applicant lodged another civil claim against company B., claiming the value of the land that had been used by B., as well as rental charges for the use of her land. On 7 June 2006 the Varva Local Court of Chernigiv Region left this claim unexamined because of the applicant’s attitude, citing the fact that she had been absent from the court hearings in her case on numerous occasions without good reason.