City Hall Takes Longer for Registering Private Property

Nona Suvariani, Tbilisi

Everybody must have watched PR advertisements where smiling citizens are simply saying, “all within one month period of time,” … how they can legally registered their lands and how everybody is so grateful. All one has to do is apply to city authorities for fulfilling its function. However, the situation is at odd with the reality. The situation that people face in the process is entirely different and often times very time consuming.

“With the initiative of the Georgian President, Georgian Parliament enacted a new law that provides for the Legalization of the land and buildings that may have been constructed upon that land. According to the new law, every physical person or private legal entity can receive legal ownership on the land they actually posses, though it is not documented or legally recognized. There are three categories of similar lands. Special commission and corresponding department have already been established in the Tbilisi City Hall,” this announcement can be read on the website of the Tbilisi City Hall. In the subtitle of the TV advertisement Tbilisi resident say they have applied to the City Hall and have their properties registered “without any problems,” and this was completed “within a month”.

President’s resolution # 525 on the Legalization of the Private Property was put in motion in 2007. Based on the resolution a law was enacted too. In accordance to the resolution and supporting law, property can be legalized within a month.

Tbilisi residents often apply to the Human Rights Centre and complain about the work of the City Hall. More precisely, the legalization process of their lands or other properties has been a prolonged process for the most part.

The Human Rights Centre was able to get in touch with the Property Legalization Legal Department at the City Hall and asked: “How much time is necessary to legalize the property?”

They replied “three months” because they explained the discussion of documents is too complicated and hard job for the commission. Unfortunately, the respondent did not wish to tell his name. Thus his comment will be provided below without his surname.

“The term for property legalization in the President’s resolution ranges from one to three months. It takes three months if documents that are not completely provided. However, in instances when all the paperwork is in order, it takes between one and three months.”

“The complete documents might be provided but Administrative Institution can still prolong the process as much as three months. Generally, although one month is widely discussed, as for just how long it actually takes, which might last for an additional two months. The administrative entity might conclude that the term must be prolonged, as under circumstances where there are too many documents to process. Thus, the administration cannot manage to complete its discussion on time. As a result the administration then requests additional documents from the applicant who is then provided with a notification, which can be in the form of a request for additional documents. Normally the people is asked to provide the documents in a period that is in less than three months.” 

Representative of the Legal Department stated that if citizens are curious about any kind of information they can visit the website of the City hall and send questions to the operators. He said operators reply to 100-150 questions a day.

“If the documents are all in order and commission still cannot manage to legalize the property in time, the applicant is then called and informed that his/her case is under discussion but because of the extremely large number of documents, the discussion process has been extended.  As for exceeding estimated terms, we strive to avoid such incidents.”

Reader might have noticed the above-mentioned comments of Mr. Lekso, who does not want to provide his full name, from this department was contradictory. As what is claimed is not the same as the reality for the most part.

Nestan Londaridze, the lawyer for the Human Rights Centre, stated that she has not received a reply to the question she had sent on December 23 2007. Thus, more than three months have passed though the officials of the administrative institution could not find time to send an explanation letter to her. Nestan Londaridze learned quite accidentally that she has to provide some additional documents to the City Hall. Thus, she might need another three months to receive the reply upon submitting  additional documents. Consequently,  we think the City Hall does not adhere to the stipulated terms as envisioned in the law and their own statements.

“The commission starts discussion within a month after the citizen submits the documents. However, if additional documents are needed for the process or in those instances when the situation requires investigation, the commission then has the right to prolong the time period for an additional month. At least the total amount of discussion time should not exceed three months. In fact people are not informed that discussions of their cases were actually prolonged in the first place. Only after three months when they have already lost hope to register their properties, applicants are then demanded to have provide additional documents. That’s why people have applied to the Human Rights Centre and complained about blatant violation of the terms and conditions of the process. If the citizen has not submitted all necessary documents s/he must be informed about the fact within a month, and the time limit must be extended in order to enable the citizen to come up with the requested document,” said Nestan Londaridze.