Which documents to check when buying a house in Cherkasy: title, land and commissioning

Keep this checklist at hand from the first viewing to signing the contract. Each point is explained in detail below.

• Ownership of the house is registered in the State Register of Real Property Rights or, if it dates from before 2013, confirmed by documents and the BTI archive.
• The land under the house belongs to the seller, has a cadastral number and the 02.01 designated use, and its boundaries and area match what you see on site.
• The house has been commissioned: there is a registered declaration of readiness or a certificate, and it shows up in the state construction e-system (EDESSB).
• The technical passport matches reality: no unauthorised extensions, extra floors or converted garages.
• No mortgage, arrests or bans on sale; the spouse's consent is in place and, if a child owns or uses the home, so is the guardianship authority's permission.
• Nobody else is registered at the house, and there are no debts for gas, electricity, water or septic emptying.
• The physical condition has been checked: foundation, roof, damp, heating and wiring, ideally with a specialist.
• Pay a deposit only after the documents are checked, sign at a notary and pay through a bank.

Ownership of real estate arises from the moment of state registration (Civil Code, Art. 334(4)). So the first thing to see is the information from the State Register of Real Property Rights: who the owner is, their share, the address, the area, how they acquired it, and whether a mortgage, an arrest or a ban is registered. You can get it via Diia, at an administrative services centre (TsNAP) or from a notary. Compare the details with the seller's passport and with the title document: a purchase or gift contract, an inheritance certificate or a court decision.

Many houses in the private-housing areas of Dakhnivka, Kazbet and Sedova, and in the villages of Cherkasy district, were registered before 2013. Such rights are valid even without an entry in the electronic register (Law on State Registration of Real Property Rights, Art. 3(3)), but before a sale they are registered first, and the registrar requests the records from the former inventory bureau (BTI) archive. An old ownership certificate or a 1990s contract is therefore not a problem in itself, but its details must match the archive, and the owner's signature must belong to a real person.

Pay attention to how the seller acquired the house. An inheritance means other heirs may appear; a share in a house (“half a house” with its own entrance) means the co-owner has a pre-emptive right to buy that share at the same price, and the seller must notify them in writing (Civil Code, Art. 362). If the house is sold by power of attorney, the notary will check it in the power-of-attorney register, but you should still talk to the owner yourself.

The house and the land are two separate objects of ownership, and each must be registered. If the plot belongs to the seller, it passes to the buyer together with the house: under Article 120 of the Land Code and Article 377 of the Civil Code, the contract must cover both the house and the plot, and the simultaneous transfer of the land is an essential term of the contract. You cannot buy the house “without the land” if the seller owns it.

What to check about the land:

• The cadastral number and the registration of ownership of the plot in the State Register of Real Property Rights. A plot without a cadastral number will have to be formalised first, which takes time and money.
• The designated use. For a residential house it is code 02.01, “for the construction and maintenance of a residential house, outbuildings and structures (homestead plot)”, under the official classifier of land uses. A house on a plot designated for gardening or private farming is a different legal story; for example, the eOselia programme will not finance such a house.
• Area and boundaries. Compare the cadastre with the fence on site: the public cadastral map of the State Geocadastre (map.land.gov.ua) shows the plot's outline. If a neighbour's fence encroaches on the plot, or the other way round, sort it out before the deal.
• If the land is municipal and the seller only has the right to use it (a lease or permanent use), that right passes to the buyer on the same terms (Civil Code, Art. 377), but you will not become the owner of the land. Ask whether it can be bought out or formalised.

Ownership of a newly built house arises only after it has been accepted into operation and registered (Civil Code, Art. 331(2)). Most private houses fall into consequence class CC1 and are commissioned by registering a declaration of readiness for operation; CC2 and CC3 buildings get a certificate instead (Law on Regulation of Urban Development, Art. 39). These documents are kept in the Construction Activity Register of the Unified State Electronic System in Construction (EDESSB) at e-construction.gov.ua, where you can search for a declaration by address, cadastral number or registration number and check its status.

A house that has not been commissioned is, in effect, building materials the register cannot see: ownership cannot be registered as a residential house, a bank will not take it as mortgage collateral, and a notary will not certify its sale as a finished home. Sometimes such a property is registered as unfinished construction; that is legal, but you are buying exactly that, an unfinished building, and you will have to complete and commission it yourself. A receipt or an “informal written agreement” for such a house gives you no ownership.

There is a simplified procedure for older unauthorised builds: individual (homestead) houses of up to 500 m² built between 5 August 1992 and 9 April 2015 are commissioned on the basis of a technical survey, with no fines for building without a permit (Law on Regulation of Urban Development, Section V, clause 9). If the seller says “it can be legalised”, let them do it before the deal: a house with papers and one without are worth different money.

Take the technical passport and walk round the house with it. The number of floors, the area, the rooms, the veranda, the attic, the summer kitchen, the garage, the bathhouse: everything standing on the plot should appear in the technical passport and in the commissioning documents. A veranda insulated and turned into a room, a second floor added “turnkey” or a garage converted into living space are typical findings when checking a house before purchase.

Anything built without a permit document, on land not designated for it or in serious breach of building rules is unauthorised construction. Whoever built it does not acquire ownership of it (Civil Code, Art. 376), so they cannot lawfully sell it to you either. The consequences range from being unable to register the area or get a mortgage to an order to demolish the extension. So either the seller legalises the changes before the deal, or the price and the contract honestly reflect that you are buying only what is in the documents.

A house under a mortgage, an arrest or a ban on sale cannot be sold until the encumbrance is lifted. They are all recorded in the same State Register of Real Property Rights, so a fresh extract is a must. Check the land as well as the house: encumbrances can be registered on each object separately.

If the house is pledged to a bank and the seller offers to repay the loan with your money, do it only under a scheme agreed with the bank and the notary: the money goes straight to the bank, the bank lifts the mortgage, and only then is the purchase contract signed. For properties registered before 2013, encumbrances may also sit in the old register of bans, which the notary checks separately.

Even perfect documents for the house will not save the deal if the seller had no right to sell alone. Check the people as carefully as the paperwork:

• Spouses. If the house and land were acquired during marriage, selling them requires the other spouse's written notarised consent (Family Code, Art. 65). This also applies to a former spouse if the property has not been divided.
• Children and guardianship. If a young child owns or uses the house or the plot under it, the parents cannot sell them without permission from the guardianship authority (Family Code, Art. 177).
• Registered residents. Selling a house does not automatically deregister the people registered there. Ask everyone to deregister before the deal, or write a deadline into the contract and what happens if it is missed.
• Heirs and co-owners. With an inheritance, check whether all heirs received their share; with a share in a house, check that the co-owner has been notified of the sale.

In a private house the utilities are part of what you buy, and they also need checking on paper. Ask the seller for the account numbers, contracts and recent bills, and find out what is actually connected and what is merely promised. This matters especially for houses in Ruska Poliana, Chervona Sloboda, Budyshche, Lesky and other villages of Cherkasy district, where there is often no mains sewerage.

• Gas: whether there is a contract with the gas distribution operator, where the meter is, whether there are debts or the house has been cut off, and how the gas equipment and boiler are documented.
• Electricity: whose name the account is in, what the permitted capacity is and whether it is enough for electric heating, a water heater and air conditioning; whether there is room for a generator or solar panels.
• Water: mains supply, a borehole or a well; for a borehole, its depth, the pump and the water quality.
• Sewerage: a mains connection or a septic tank or cesspit; how often it is emptied, by whom, and whether it sits right next to the well or the neighbouring plot.
• After the deal, transfer all accounts into your name and record the meter readings in the handover report.

The documents answer “can I buy it”; the inspection answers “should I”. Come in daylight and, if possible, after rain as well. For anything complicated, bring a builder or a surveyor: their fee is nothing compared with repairing a foundation.

• Foundation and walls: cracks running from the corners of windows and doors, distortion, a sunken perimeter apron, fresh plaster in just one spot.
• Roof and loft: the roofing, rafters and insulation, leak stains on the ceilings, gutters.
• Damp: a musty smell, mould in corners and behind furniture, a wet basement or cellar; in low-lying areas near the Dnipro and in Mytnytsia, ask about the groundwater level.
• Heating and wiring: the boiler type, the age of pipes and radiators, aluminium or copper wiring, earthing, the fuse box.
• The plot and neighbours: winter access, street lighting, neighbours' buildings right on the boundary, trees overhanging the roof.

Once the documents are checked, the agreement is secured with an earnest deposit or an advance. A house purchase contract must be notarised (Civil Code, Art. 657), so the most reliable option is a notarised preliminary contract with an earnest deposit (Arts. 570–571). Do not hand over money before the checks, and never pay a “reservation fee” for a house whose documents you have not seen.

The house and the land plot are put into a single contract at the notary. The buyer pays a 1% pension levy on the price unless this is their first home, and the parties agree between themselves who pays the state duty or the private notary's fee. For details on taxes, fees and safe payment through a bank, see our step-by-step guide to buying an apartment in Cherkasy: the rules are the same for a house.

After the purchase, remember the property tax: for residential houses the taxable area is reduced by 120 m² (Tax Code, 266.4.1), and the rates and reliefs, like the land fee, are set by the local council. If you plan a mortgage or eOselia, get the bank to approve the house before you pay a deposit: the bank assesses both the house and the land.

We find houses in Cherkasy and Cherkasy district to fit your budget, check the documents for the house and the land, the commissioning and any encumbrances in advance, arrange the inspection and accompany the deal to the notary. The houses-for-sale catalogue brings together current OLX listings and the agency's own properties, so duplicates and outdated offers are easy to filter out.

Every buyer who requests a property from the sale section gets a code for a $100 discount on agency services when signing a purchase contract through Svit Nerukhomosti. Details are on the offer page; call +38 (093) 627-96-00.