Dmitriy Uryakin commented to Novy Prospect on the restriction of access to personal data of the property owner in the Unified State Register of Real Estate

The State Duma in its third and final hearing adopted amendments to the law “On State Registration of Real Estate” which introduce a ban on the release of data from the Unified State Register of Real Estate with the personal data of the owner. Now the data on the object and its owner is available to anyone, from March 1, 2023 this information can be obtained either by contacting a notary, or with the permission of the owner of the property. As conceived by the developers of the amendments, they will protect the owners from fraudsters who use personal information for document forgery and real estate fraud.

“The legislator’s declared idea of protecting personal data in order to safeguard it from criminal encroachment by third parties certainly deserves support. However, the last thing that should have been done in this case was to anonymize information about the owners of properties, as this is contrary to the very essence of the real estate register, which in general is based on the principles of reliability and publicity.

Previously, a potential buyer only needed to know the cadastral number of the property, after which he could do all the steps to verify it himself. Now he would need to contact the seller, who may be interested in providing false information, or notary, who in principle is not required to make a request to the Unified State Register of Real Estate, or to the shadowy intermediaries, acting outside the law. This will complicate real estate turnover and increase time and transaction costs associated with checking objects and their owners,” Dmitry Uryakin, Associate at Maxima Legal, commented on the changes specifically for Novy Prospect.

To read the full article (in Russian) please visit Novy Prospect website >>>