FIFTH SECTION
CASE OF MAMEDOV v. UKRAINE
(Application no. 43548/18)
 
 
 
 
 
 
JUDGMENT
 
STRASBOURG
9 April 2026
 
 
 
This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Mamedov v. Ukraine,
The European Court of Human Rights (Fifth Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:
 Gilberto Felici, President,
 Mykola Gnatovskyy,
 Vahe Grigoryan, judges,
and Martina Keller, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having regard to:
the application (no. 43548/18) against Ukraine lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) on 31 August 2018 by a Ukrainian national, Mr Sakhraddin Ali-ogly Mamedov (“the applicant”), who was born in 1961 and lives in Kherson, and was represented by Mr O.M. Salivonskyy, a lawyer practising in Kherson;
the decision to give notice of the application to the Ukrainian Government (“the Government”), represented by their Agent, Ms M. Sokorenko;
the parties’ observations;
Having deliberated in private on 19 March 2026,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
SUBJECT MATTER OF THE CASE
1. The application concerns a dispute between private parties over the rights to land. 2. In June 2009 the applicant bought a house in the village of Antonivka, Kherson Region. The house had been built in 1985 on a plot of land allocated to the initial owner in 1963. The sale agreement did not contain any provisions regarding the transfer of rights to the land. 3. In the following years, disputes between the applicant and his neighbour regarding the use of their adjacent plots of land and real estate were on numerous occasions brought before the courts. However, it appears that only one set of proceedings was terminated by the delivery of a final judgment, all the others being terminated for procedural reasons without any judgment on the merits. The case which resulted in a judgment (no. 2-2644/11) concerned the issue of construction by the applicant of an extension to his house. In that case, the courts established that the extension had been unauthorised and that one of its walls had been built on the neighbour’s fence. The applicant was ordered to demolish that unauthorised extension but apparently failed to do so. 4. In 2013 the applicant instituted court proceedings seeking to have the local authorities’ decision regarding his neighbour’s land and his title to it (obtained in 2003) declared null and void. The applicant argued that his house was standing on a plot of land measuring 500 square metres which had been allocated to the initial owner in 1963; that owner had had her right to the land registered in the village’s special land register (земельно-шнуровa книгa). He submitted to the courts an excerpt from that register as well as a certificate that the plot of land had in 1993 been listed by the village council as “provided for use”. He contended that although the Land Code of Ukraine of 2001 had introduced a new way of registering rights to land, its transitional provisions also provided that land rights that had been created and registered in the manner existing previously (that is, in his case, under Soviet legislation) remained valid. 5. The applicant also provided to the courts a number of letters and certificates from various authorities which confirmed that the house he had bought was “accompanied” by a plot of land measuring 500 square metres. The Antonivka Village Council also confirmed in court that it supported the applicant’s claim. 6. The applicant further argued that when his neighbour had been formalising his title in 2003, he had contracted a specialised organisation to prepare the necessary technical documentation, which had erred in its measurements and delineations. In particular, the documents stated that one of the borders of his neighbour’s land was established as “a virtual prolongation of the existing fences and buildings”. The applicant submitted to the courts a letter from the local land management authority confirming that that had been an error and that the technical documentation was thus incorrect. 7. A forensic technical expert assessment was also conducted in the case. In his conclusion, prepared in April 2016, the expert stated that pursuant to Soviet legislation, the allocation of land into use in the villages (no private ownership of land existed at the time) was to be registered in special land registers (земельно-шнуровi книги); entries into those registers could only be made after the plot of land had been delimited on site. Considering that there existed an entry in the register confirming the allocation of a plot of land measuring 500 square metres in 1963, it could be inferred that the land had been duly delimited. It was further established that the adjacent plot of land had, until 2003, measured 700 square metres, but in 2003 the applicant’s neighbour had somehow obtained title to a plot of land measuring 770 square metres, with part of the newly added land being that on which the applicant’s house stood. The expert further stated that the unauthorised constructions that the applicant had built had no relevance to the case, as it was the “main” house, built in 1985, that the erroneous establishment of boundaries between the plots of land had concerned. 8. The domestic courts, after one re-examination of the case, ultimately rejected the applicant’s claim. The courts acknowledged that under Article 120 of the Land Code, in the event of purchase of real estate, the new owner also obtained rights to the land on which that real estate was located and which was necessary for the maintenance of that real estate. At the same time, they established that neither the applicant nor the previous owners had had their titles to the plot of land in question duly formalised as required by the Land Code. They found that the evidence relied on by the applicant in that respect was “inadequate and unacceptable”. Furthermore, the allocation of land to the applicant’s neighbour and his registration of title to it in 2003 could not have violated the applicant’s rights, as he had not yet been the owner of the house at that time. 9. The courts did not address the question that the boundaries of the neighbour’s land overstepped the applicant’s real estate and did not mention the 2016 expert conclusion in their judgments. Neither did the courts mention any previous proceedings, particularly those regarding the unauthorised construction (see paragraph 3 above). 10. The final judgment was delivered by the Supreme Court on 3 May 2018.

Outcome for Article 6: violation