Apartment for a Barbie doll
Back in the spring, during a business trip to Vologda, I learned about an incredible story about how Vologda justice legalized as a legal fact a room with an area of 1 m2. According to the documents, the area of this building is 1 m2.
I repeat, 1 square meter!
The pigeon coops in the country are even bigger. And the room with an area of 1 m2, this is only an apartment for a Barbie doll. But the arbitration court of the Vologda region was not at all confused by the figure of 1 m2.
This figure, which is worthy of being included in the Guinness Book of World Records, and the court of Appeal, also located and operating in Vologda, were not confused. And they fixed this area in 1 m2 of the room area in their decisions.
But the judges of the cassation instance in St. Petersburg were very surprised by the shortsightedness of their Vologda colleagues and on April 22, 2024, overturned the decision of the first two instances, sending the case for reconsideration.
I was waiting for the next trial of this case to begin. And this story went to the second round. On April 17 of this year, very quickly, in just one session, the Arbitration Court of the Vologda Region, ignoring the opinion of colleagues from the appellate instance, again issued a decision that actually recognized the right to exist of an apartment for a Barbie doll-a room of 1 m2.
The full text of the decision was prepared for two weeks and posted on May 5. Naturally, it was appealed. The first meeting of the appeal instance is already scheduled for June 30.
Meanwhile, the history of the apartment for the Barbie doll has been studied for several years by the prosecutor's office, the courts, and even the Investigative Committee. On October 2, 2023, a criminal case was initiated under Part 3 of Article 285.3 of the Criminal Code of Russia – Entering deliberately false information into the unified state registers. By the way, this is a very harsh article of the Criminal Code. Part 3 of the article provides for up to 10 years of imprisonment.
There is a victim in the criminal case. Vladimir Lyutikov, a resident of Vologda, is recognized as such. But who exactly entered deliberately false information in the State Register, detectives have not been able to establish for a year and a half. But first things first.
The long-suffering apartment building number 32 on Vologda Dalnaya Street was built back in the 80s according to a standard project. According to this project, apartments are located from the 2nd to the 9th floors, and shops and warehouses were planned on the first floor and in two extensions from the ends of the house.
But when the USSR collapsed, the house remained unfinished for many years. It was only in 1995 that the act of commissioning 128 apartments was signed. 128 families received keys to them and formed a HOA.
But the first floor and outbuildings from the ends of the house were not put into operation. Perhaps because there were no people willing to open large retail outlets in a house located on the outskirts of the city, in a place that was not very popular at that time.
In the early 2000s, the developer, who, apparently, had a serious administrative resource, came up with a brilliant idea. In Vologda, then there was a catastrophic shortage of apartments. What did the developer do? I took and redeveloped the retail and storage areas on the first floor for apartments. I built partitions, installed gas and water in each of the rooms.
Instead of a large store, 20 apartments and 18 so-called non-residential premises appeared on the first floor of the house, which were quickly sold out. And the acts of purchase and sale are registered in a serious organization called the Vologda Regional Center for State Registration of Real Estate and Transactions with it. At the same time, the redevelopment of the first floor was carried out without approval from the city administration, without state expertise of the modified redevelopment, without approval from gas and utility companies for laying pipes, gas and water supply. The act of putting into operation the apartments on the first floor was never signed.
In the extension on the left side of the facade of the house, a car service soon started working, but the right extension was not needed by anyone and was abandoned for almost 20 years, turning into a hangout for local drunks and drug addicts.
In 2018, this extension to the house was purchased by Vologda entrepreneur Vladimir Lyutikov. The transaction was registered in the BTI as an object of unfinished construction with an area of several hundred meters. The entrepreneur bought this object together with the documents. Back on July 13, 2005, the Head of the Vologda City Administration signed Resolution No. 2018, which allowed the reconstruction of the premises.
Based on this resolution, a reconstruction project was prepared in 2007, which was also approved in all instances. Lyutikov removed several trucks of garbage from this facility, carried out reconstruction according to the approved plan, improved the building and was already going to open an office space, and together with the society of disabled people, a small workshop for the employment of disabled people. And when the entrepreneur started processing documents for registration in the State Register, he was surprised to learn that back in 2014, the Departmentof the Federal Registration Service for the Vologda Region registered this extension as a 1 m2 room and included this 1 m2 in the structure of an apartment building as a completed construction project.
It would seem that a technical error was made that needs to be corrected, but then the Federal Registration Service stopped. And the bacchanal began, to which the HOA also joined. Lawsuits began.
According to accounting, there is no extension to the house, Lyutikov does not have a personal account, he is not a member of the HOA. In the data of the State Cadastral Registration and in the data of the UnifiedState Register of Real Estate, this extension with an area of several hundred square meters is also missing.
HOA "Dalnaya 32" does not serve this object. This object of unfinished construction has no common communications with the house. However, in 2022, solely on the basis of an extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities stating that the entrepreneur owns a room of 1 m2 as part of an apartment building, the Vologda City Court ruled that all work on the reconstruction of the premises is unauthorized, because there is no general agreement of all members of the HOA – apartment owners.
The court did not take into account the objection of the Vologda administration that this is not a room, but an object of unfinished construction. Taking as the basis of the court decision the very extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Entities in 1 m2, considering it reliable, and believing that once this apartment for a Barbie doll was included in the house and only then, as a result of reconstruction, it became an object of unfinished construction.
Vladimir Lyutikov appealed to the Arbitration Court with a claim for invalidating the entry on the premises with an area of 1 m2 in the unifiedState Register of Real Estate.
The local press also wrote about this story, but the who is still there. And now the fate of the apartment for Barbie is decided in the Arbitration Court.
Well, there was a criminal case. The investigators also seem to be waiting for the Arbitration Court to decide, so they are delaying the investigation. We also have no choice but to wait for the decision of the Arbitration Court and continue to observe the development of events in this murky story of the "Barbie hut", an area of 1 square meter.
