ESCHEATED PROPERTY IN THE TEMPORARILY OCCUPIED TERRITORIES OF UKRAINE: THE PROBLEM OF RECOGNITION

Abstract

As a result of the long-term full-scale invasion of Russian armed forces and the occupation of a significant part of the territory of Ukraine, legal uncertainty arises regarding the legal status of property that has not been accepted by heirs or for which such heirs are absent. In peaceful circumstances, the institution of escheat of property serves as an effective tool for bringing such property into civil circulation and protecting public interests. However, the current legislation of Ukraine does not contain special norms regarding the application of this institution in conditions of temporary occupation, which creates systemic legal gaps and practical difficulties, the overcoming of which is an important task for both the legislator and legal scholarship.

The purpose of the article is to study the legal foundations of the institution of escheat of inheritance, analyze legal problems related to the recognition of inheritance as extinct in the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine, identify gaps in the current legislative framework and develop proposals for their elimination.

During the study, general scientific and special legal methods were used, in particular: dialectical method; systemic-structural method; formal-legal method; comparative legal method.

Results: it was established that the institution of escheated inheritance is characterized by the complexity of law enforcement and the absence of unified approaches to its definition; it was revealed that the process of succession to escheated inheritance is characterized by features that are not typical for inheritance by law or by will: the obligation to acquire exclusively in court; a specific range of legal subjects, the the territorial community cannot refuse such inheritance; an analysis of the capabilities of a local government body to form an evidentiary basis for submitting an application for recognition of escheated inheritance located in a temporarily occupied territory by categories: time and place of opening the inheritance, identification of property and its belonging to the deceased, absence of heirs.

Conclusions: recognition of inheritance in the occupied territories as extinct is not only practically impossible due to the lack of a proper evidentiary base, but may also be premature. The extinction of inheritance can be applied no earlier than the heir receives a real opportunity to exercise his right, that is, after deoccupation. Accordingly, it is proposed to establish that the deadline for submitting an application by a local government body to recognize the inheritance as extinct shall commence six months after the deoccupation of the relevant territory.