FIFTH SECTIONCASE OF VOROBYOV AND VYKHRYSTYUK v. UKRAINE(Applications nos. 77542/17 and 77551/17)      JUDGMENT STRASBOURG9 October 2025   This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision.In the case of Vorobyov and Vykhrystyuk v. Ukraine,The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting as a Committee composed of: Andreas Zünd, President, Mykola Gnatovskyy, Vahe Grigoryan, judges,and Martina Keller, Deputy Section Registrar,Having regard to:the applications against Ukraine lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 30 October 2017 by Vorobyov Pavlo Pavlovych (“the first applicant”) and Vykhrystyuk Mariya Pavlivna (“the second applicant”, together “the applicants”), who were represented by Mr O.V. Ryabokon, a lawyer practising in Poltava;the decision to give notice of the complaints under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention to the Ukrainian Government (“the Government”) represented by their Agent, Ms M. Sokorenko, and to declare the remainder of the applications inadmissible;the parties’ observations; Having deliberated in private on 11 September 2025,Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE1. The case concerns the applicants’ complaint that it was impossible for them to inherit a flat from their deceased mother, as the privatisation of that flat had been invalidated on the grounds that it had violated the rights of other persons. The applicants relied on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention.2. The applicants are the children of Ms M., who died in 2012.3. In 1968 Ms M. obtained from former local authorities the tenancy of a flat in Poltava under the former Soviet legislation on public housing stock. Since 1983 she had been living in it with her granddaughter, Ms Z., and, subsequently, also with the latter’s husband, Mr Z. In 1993, after Ukraine’s transition from the Soviet law, which did not recognise ownership of immovable property by natural persons and entities other than the State, to a system based on ownership and tenancy in the classical sense, Ms M. acquired title to that flat in the course of the privatisation process during which Ms M. had designated Ms Z. and Mr Z. as “temporary residents”. Ms M. was thus referred to in the documents as the flat’s sole owner. It is unclear whose daughter Ms Z. is.4. In a will dated 2006 Ms M. left the flat to the applicants and to Ms Z.; however, in a later will, written in 2011, the flat was left only to the applicants.5. Upon Ms M.’s death, Ms Z. and Mr Z. lodged a claim seeking to have both the 1993 ownership certificate for the flat and the 2011 will invalidated. They argued that Ms M. had not been entitled to obtain title to the flat through the privatisation process or to register herself as the sole owner, because all three of them had been living in it as a family for a long time. Both the local authority from which Ms M. had obtained the flat and the applicants were respondents in the proceedings.6. After several re-examinations of the case, the above claim was granted in part; the privatisation decision was set aside and Ms M.’s ownership certificate was invalidated. The domestic courts found that Ms Z. and Mr Z. ought to have been regarded as members of Ms M.’s family and, as such, included in the privatisation process. The authorities had therefore erred when examining Ms M.’s application for privatisation of the flat. The courts rejected, on procedural grounds, the claim for invalidation of the 2011 will. In the course of the proceedings the representative of the local authority argued that were the request for invalidation of the privatisation to be granted, a situation would be created whereby the privatisation would be set aside after the death of the (main) person concerned and the flat, which had been initially obtained by that person on the basis of no longer existing (Soviet) legal norms from the no longer existing bodies would thus belong to nobody, and it would be impossible either to re-privatise or inherit it.7. The final domestic judgment was adopted by the Higher Specialised Civil and Criminal Court on 21 June 2017.8. In their observations the Government informed the Court that Ms Z. and Mr Z. were “registered” as living in the flat. For their part, the applicants provided an excerpt from the relevant State register confirming that, as of August 2018, Ms Z. and Mr Z. and their two children were the owners of the flat in question. The Government did not comment on that point. THE COURT’S ASSESSMENTJOINDER OF THE APPLICATIONS9. Having regard to the similar subject matter of the applications, the Court finds it appropriate to examine them jointly in a single judgment.Locus standi of ms T.10. The first applicant, Mr Vorobyov, died on 2 January 2024, after lodging the present application. His daughter, Ms T., expressed her wish to continue the proceedings before the Court in his stead. She provided a certificate, drawn up by a notary, confirming that she was an heir of the deceased Mr Vorobyov.11. The Government disputed Ms T.’s standing to pursue the application in the first applicant’s stead, arguing that she had failed to prove that she was his only heir. They also argued that she had no moral or material interest in pursuing the case.12. The Court notes that in various cases in which an applicant has died during the Convention proceedings, it has taken into account the statements made by the applicant’s heirs or close family members expressing the wish to pursue the proceedings before the Court. In view of the above and having regard to the circumstances of the present case, which relates to property rights, the Court accepts that Ms T. has a legitimate interest in pursuing the application in her late father’s stead. However, for reasons of convenience, the text of this judgment will continue to refer to Mr Vorobyov as “the first applicant” (see, for a recent example, Vasylevska v. Ukraine (dec.), no. 37919/15, § 12, 4 July 2024, with further references).ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 1 of Protocol No. 1 to THE CONVENTION13. The applicants complained under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention that the manner in which the domestic courts had revoked their deceased mother’s title to the flat in question had been unfair and had deprived them of the possibility to inherit it after her death, as she had stipulated in her will. The applicants stated that even if it were accepted that Ms Z. and Mr Z. could claim property rights over the flat in question, this would only mean that they had privatised it in equal shares with Ms M. and that, accordingly, the applicants were entitled to inherit Ms M.’s share.14. The Government argued that Ms M. had failed to privatise the flat in accordance with the rules and procedures established by law, in that her privatisation of the flat as its sole owner had infringed the rights of the other persons living in it. The domestic courts, having conducted a detailed analysis of the case, concluded that Ms M.’s title had to be revoked in order to protect the rights of Ms Z. and Mr Z. The interference had therefore been lawful and pursued the legitimate aim of “controlling the use of property in accordance with the general interest of ensuring the protection of the housing rights of others”. The Government also submitted that the interference had been proportionate, since Ms Z. and Mr Z. had been living in the flat for many years and were entitled to claim property rights over it. At the same time, the applicants had, in the Government’s view, an appropriate legal mechanism allowing them to protect their rights before the domestic courts, in particular, they could have initiated proceedings to claim ownership of the flat through inheritance, which they had failed to do.15. On the latter point, the applicants argued that it had not been possible to initiate separate proceedings, because the fact that their late mother’s title to the flat had been revoked meant that there was no object over which inheritance rights could be claimed.16.

Article of the Convention at issue: Article 1
Outcome: violation