Checking the apartment for cleanliness. 6 Step Instructions

Apartment inspection stages

In order to exclude the possibility of fraud when purchasing real estate, it is worth checking the apartment for legal purity before purchasing. We need to act step by step.

Receiving extracts from the Unified State Register of Real Estate

At the first stage, you should apply for a certified extract from the Unified State Register of Real Estate to the territorial office of Rosreestr or the MFC (Multifunctional Center). The following documents will be needed:

passport of a citizen of the Russian Federation;
application for receipt;
receipt of payment of state duty.

The application form is available for download on the official website of Rosreestr, where you can also see the details for paying the state duty. For the state tax, money is paid at a Sberbank branch.

EGRN-1

This form of certificate from the Unified State Register of Real Estate contains information about the characteristics of the property.

Real estate information includes:

type of apartment;
its cadastral number;
technical characteristics of housing - floor, area, availability of communications, etc.

EGRN-4

The specified form of extract from the Unified State Register of Real Estate will inform you about the contents of title documents. This includes:

list of officially registered rights to the object;
the fact of restrictions or encumbrances on housing;
latest data on legal claims to real estate;
information about the right to residential property of a specific individual;
information about the incapacity of the owner of the apartment being sold or information about the limitation of his legal capacity.

Verification of the owner(s) of the apartment

The most important are 2 documents - confirming the seller’s rights to the apartment and identifying him. And if the owner’s intentions are serious, he will present the potential buyer with a housing certificate and his passport.

The certificate indicates the basis documents for registering the right to the previous owner. Preferred contracts are those of purchase and sale, donation, and barter. Each one bears the Fed's blue seal on the back. If it is absent, the transaction will not take place.

Otherwise, the buyer of residential real estate must himself obtain an extract from the Unified State Register of Real Estate. Internet checking through Rosreestr is popular, the website of which is easy to use.

The seller’s passport details must match the document confirming his identity. If the passport has changed, information about the previous identity card is noted on the final sheet of the latest document.

Please note: an adequate seller, at the buyer’s request, will provide him with a copy of his passport for the buyer to independently verify the authenticity of the document. The official website of the migration service will help. If there are 2 or more owners, this must be done with the main documentation of each of them.

What can happen if you don't check the apartment

Buying an apartment with a dark past carries several risks for the buyer. Risk one: the bank will refuse to issue a loan for the purchase of this home. Risk two: Rosreestr will refuse to register property rights. Risk three: persons whose rights were once violated will have the transaction declared invalid through the courts, the new owner will lose the apartment, and it is not a fact that he will be able to get his money back. Risk four: there may be hidden damage to communications or supporting structures (as a result of fire, flood, etc.) and the new owner will have to bear additional costs. There is also a risk of persons having the right of residence in this living space and other risks.

Evgenia Svintarzhitskaya
lawyer
A specialist checking the legal purity of an object has the right to take information only from open sources. This allows you to check whether the owner’s passport is valid, whether there are any encumbrances on the apartment, and whether the owner is bankrupt. You can find out about the criminal records of the owner and tenants. But if one of the residents is under investigation, the realtor will not be able to see this. There is also no database that allows you to see whether a person is alive or not.

Realtors note that the problem is also confirming the legal capacity of the seller of the property. Based on a court decision on the complete or partial restriction of a person’s legal capacity (due to a mental state, drug or alcohol addiction, gambling addiction), the data is entered into the Unified State Register. But only the person, the guardian, or the “authorities” can receive an extract with information about a specific person.

Natalia Mikhailyukova
UPN lawyer
Not all sellers adequately respond to the request to provide an extract from the Unified State Register of Legal Capacity. And the realtor cannot force the seller to run for an extract. Providing certificates from drug and psychodispensaries is a little easier, but even if the owner is not registered there, this is not a guarantee of the absence of problems. There was a case when the owner of the property presented all the certificates, and after registering the transfer of ownership rights, the relatives of the former owner registered him with the dispensary. It turned out that although the person had not been to a psychiatrist for more than 30 years, in childhood he was diagnosed with mental retardation. As a result, the transaction with the apartment was challenged, since, due to the previously made diagnosis, there were grounds for the court to conclude that the seller could not understand the significance of his actions.

Even the marital status of the apartment seller can become a source of serious problems when making a transaction.

Marina Zavarnitsyna
real estate agent of the Academy of Sciences "LIGHT Real Estate"
In Russia there is no unified database for Civil Registry Offices. A man got married in one region, divorced in another, then changed his passport. As a result, it is almost impossible to obtain reliable information about his marital status in a legal way. There was a situation - a man was selling an apartment. He bought it when he was already divorced, and even showed him a divorce certificate. Later it turned out that this certificate was declared invalid by some district court. As a result, the transaction with the apartment was suspended at the request of the wife. According to the law, this object is jointly acquired property. I note that that transaction had signs of fraud.

Data on marital status, presence of children, extent of legal capacity, mental state and other aspects of the private life of any person are considered restricted information. Bankers, realtors, lawyers and notaries have no right to receive and use this information. The mentioned data also cannot be used in the expert opinion of Sberbank (at least officially). As participants in the real estate market note, the use of methods provided for by law to verify a property will never be able to insure the buyer of the property against problems in the future. However, even the analysis of open information often gives very tangible results.

Ekaterina Gornova
Director of the Central Scientific Center "Academic"
Any competent realtor automatically checks a number of points that may cause the registration of a transaction to be suspended. First of all, the apartment is checked for encumbrances. Often, even the owner does not know that a decision has been made regarding his property to restrict its disposal. For example, a person once did not fully repay a consumer loan, did not repay the debt, or did not pay alimony. By decision of the court, the bailiff seizes the registration actions of the debtor's apartment. Rosreestr has closed the deal with her.

When checking an apartment, not only information received from third-party sources is analyzed. Papers confirming the rights to the property of the current owner (seller) may also contain problematic issues.

Natalia Mikhailyukova
UPN lawyer
If people make a home transaction without the help of a realtor, they usually download the purchase and sale agreement via the Internet, change the addresses and names in it, and then put signatures. It happens that the owner who received an apartment through such a document can no longer sell it. For example, I had to deal with an agreement in which, as expected, the concepts of “seller” and “buyer” were introduced, but at the end there was the phrase “the owner has the right to use the object.” Who is this “owner”? Unclear. Formally, the current owner does not have the right to dispose of the apartment. Or another case - a woman gave an apartment to her daughter, who had a small child. The deed of gift included the phrase “The right to use the apartment is retained by a young child.” That is, until the youngest in this family turns 18 years old, transactions with an apartment cannot be made without taking into account the interests of the child, who retains the right to use the apartment. If you buy the mentioned apartments, then most likely the new owner may have disputes with the persons who received the right to use the apartment on the basis of these agreements.

The transaction becomes especially acute if we are talking about an object that was inherited by the current owner (owners). Previously, the portal METRTV.RU talked about the need to identify all applicants for the inheritance when it comes to a transaction with it. But it turns out that inheritance rights can come up unexpectedly, even if the current owner bought the apartment himself.

Natalia Maslennikova
Leading Specialist of the Residential Real Estate Department
A single woman was selling an apartment that belonged to her personally. But when preparing the transaction, it turned out that the apartment was purchased during marriage and is jointly acquired property. The woman’s husband died, but she did not inherit his shares, as required by law. That is, until the owner resolves issues with the inheritance, she will not be able to make transactions with the apartment.

How to check the owner's representative?

A notarized power of attorney is issued to the representative if the owner sells the apartment through him. The notary issues such a document to the realtor or to the person whom the owner authorizes to conduct the “sale” business on his behalf.

The task of the notary office employee is to make sure that the owner is in adequate condition and that he agrees to issue a power of attorney without outside pressure. Each notary insures his actions, the amount is 5 million rubles. He also has the right to make video recordings in his office. And if the notary sees anything suspicious, the power of attorney will not be issued.

You can check whether such a document has been revoked using the FNP (Federal Notary Chamber) service. Here, anyone can access information about the authenticity and duration of use of the power of attorney. When checking, this document will be found in the general register and the result will be instantly issued.

Please note: it is mandatory to reconcile the data in the power of attorney and the agreement when signing it and handing over the finances for the apartment.

What documents should I check before buying an apartment?

There are a number of documents that need to be checked. First of all, this is a document that verifies the identity of the seller and the buyer. You also need to review all documents for the property, who its owner is, and whether there is a minor child among the owners.

Be sure to study the encumbrance documents and take an extract from the relevant authorities. If the apartment had a mortgage, pay special attention to the use of maternity capital.

There are many such details, and each of them requires special consideration.

Checking documents provided by the owner

The seller must have, in addition to a certificate of ownership or an extract from the Unified State Register of Real Estate:

one of the contracts for an apartment - privatization, purchase and sale, exchange, donation, act of acceptance and transfer from the developer, etc.;
certificate of inheritance (if the housing is inherited);
passports – cadastral, technical.

The legal document for ownership of real estate is also a court decision. All documents are presented to the buying party in originals and copies.

On the photocopies, the buyer establishes the presence of signatures (indicate the corresponding columns) and stamps of the registration service.

Stamped forms are used to issue certificates. All documents must not have erasures, erasures, corrections, etc. To confirm the accuracy of the documentation, title documents with the seal of Rosreestr will not be superfluous.

Checking the rights of third parties

When purchasing a property, it is worth finding out what rights third parties have over it. They may be:

certain categories of persons registered and temporarily excluded from housing by discharge - those serving sentences in court, conscripts, citizens undergoing treatment, temporary elderly residents of nursing homes, children from educational institutions and minors registered in the housing area;
children participating in shared ownership, especially if the apartment was purchased with maternity capital funds and registered as ownership through privatization;
spouses, if housing was purchased during marriage.

It is necessary to check whether the children refuse a share of the property, and that there are no obstacles on the 1st and 3rd points of the list. An extended extract from the house register provided by the owner will help.

Checking the apartment according to the BTI

After inspecting the property, you need to study the information from the Bureau of Technical Inventory extract for accuracy. Based on the marked floor plan and explication of the real estate property, it is possible to find out the exact area of the apartment and the existence of uncoordinated redevelopments. And if the technical passport already contains a stamp about such violations, it is necessary to study this document more thoroughly.

About encumbrances and arrests

If the owner of the apartment, before the sale, rented it out, entered into a rental agreement, bought it with a mortgage, or during a court case the property was seized, then the change of owner does not prevent such encumbrances from remaining in force.

Therefore, such circumstances should not exist. The buyer then applies to the Federal Reserve System or MFC for an extract from Rosreestr. It or in the “Public Map” online, in a separate section, contains all the information about encumbrances.

About claims and legal disputes

The buyer can obtain information about the legal proceedings that the owner of the apartment being sold has gone through:

in the court office, upon official appeal;
on the website of the territorial district or city judicial body;
at the bailiff service or through the bailiffs website;
from the State Register extract;
unofficially - from neighbors, employees of homeowners associations, housing departments.

If ownership of the apartment was carried out through a gift agreement or by inheritance, it is not superfluous to visit a notary.

Checking utility debts

How to check before purchasing whether there is any debt on an apartment? The best solution is for the seller to provide a certificate from the Criminal Code. It states whether or not the owner has debt for:

gas;
electricity;
water supply;
overhaul;
if available - by intercom, security, concierge.

How to quickly check an apartment for legal purity

In Moscow and the Moscow region, the “ Unified Housing Document ” is used. It replaces a whole list of other papers:

extract from the house register
copy of personal account
certificates of family composition, single deceased, dependents, cohabitation with the deceased
certificates of registration at address, change of address, verification of living conditions
certificate of absence of debts for housing and communal services
certificate of passport replacement

Attention

The EZhD does not replace an extract from the Unified State Register. You definitely need to order it!

In case of any violations on the part of the seller, you should not refuse to purchase the selected apartment

It is worth purchasing a residential property you like if the seller agrees before signing the sales contract:

pay off mandatory utility and other payments for maintaining the apartment. If the owner is insolvent, by agreement with the buyer, this can be done by reducing the price of the property and paying debts by the new owner;
close mortgage lending;
get rid of renters;
discharge minors and register them in their place of residence;
liquidate or legalize redevelopment.

Checking new buildings

The main risks when purchasing housing in a new building are related to the completion of construction in principle, the legality of this construction and its quality.

What information needs to be checked

permitting documentation - reliable developers usually post it directly on the website to quickly attract buyers. There must be a construction permit and a project declaration. It’s even better if the technical conditions for communications are written down.
the status of the site is checked using an extract from the Unified State Register of Real Estate. If it is agricultural land, problems may arise. In addition, the land should not be under arrest, pledge, or encumbrance.
reputation of the company - the more famous the developer, the lower the risks. Also look at reviews of previous properties. If there were previously delays in the delivery of the property, dissatisfied buyers, there is a risk that the situation will repeat.

Be a little spy

Before making a deal, monitor the progress of construction for some time.
Many companies now install video cameras that allow them to monitor what is happening in real time. The ideal option is to choose just such objects.

But if the suitable options (in terms of price, location, etc.) are not so modernized, the developer in any case must post information about the progress of construction on the website. And the more often, the better.

If the work is carried out according to plan, without significant delays, this will further strengthen your confidence. If delays begin already at the excavation stage, this is a serious reason to look for an alternative.

Title documents

Title documents indicate on what basis a given citizen owns real estate or part of it. There may not be such documents if the apartment is not privatized or the documents are lost. In the first case, it is necessary to suspend the transaction and wait for privatization, and in the second, ask the owner to restore the documents. There are several types of title documents, depending on how the owner acquired ownership of the apartment.

Contract of sale

If the title document is a purchase and sale agreement, then first you need to make sure that there are no disagreements between the former owner and the current one, and that the previous transaction was “clean”. To do this, in addition to the contract, you must ask for a receipt for receiving money or an acceptance certificate signed with the previous owner.

Otherwise, previous conflicts may affect the current buyer.

Agreement on shared participation in construction

This is a document of title for the owner of an apartment in a new building. In addition to this document, if the house is handed over, there must be an acceptance certificate. All information must be checked with the owner’s passport so that the data matches exactly.

Certificate of right to inheritance

This document is shown by the heirs who received ownership after the death of the owner by will or by law. In such a situation, it is important to check whether the person has entered into an inheritance and whether there are any courts. If the inheritance is contested, difficulties may arise for the new owner, especially if the mandatory shares are not allocated to minors. The court will always side with the child, and the buyer may lose money, as well as the new property.

IMPORTANT!

It is better if enough time has passed since the acceptance of the inheritance.

Order a service to check the legal cleanliness of an apartment

You can order a real estate agency to check the legal cleanliness of the apartment. This is much cheaper than paying for full support of the transaction: from searching for an apartment to registering property rights.

If you do not need the full range of agency services, you can contact them only at the stage of document verification. As a result, you will be confident in the legal purity of the transaction and save 1-2% of the cost of the apartment.

Cost of legal support for real estate transactions

depends on the region and agency level. On average it is 40,000 - 70,000 rubles. For this money, lawyers will check the entire transaction, prepare documents and accompany you during the transaction. If they promise to help you for 5,000 rubles, most likely they will simply prepare an agreement for you or take a quick look at the documents.

The agency's lawyer will check the documents and if something is wrong, he will advise you on the best course of action. The agency is responsible for mistakes made - if they make a mistake, you will receive compensation. It will cost a fraction of a percent of the cost of the apartment, but if he finds a mistake, it will save you millions.

Documents that confirm the identity of the owner

This is the very first stage, since it is necessary to verify the identity of the person who is selling the property. There is a passport for this - its data must match all that is indicated in the documents for the apartment. You should check the owner's full name, series, document number, date of issue. Problems most often arise if the owner of the apartment loses his passport and then restores it. During this time, his apartment may be sold to scammers, and the future buyer will then lose money, since the court recognizes the transaction as void.

If the owner is a minor, then his identification document is a birth certificate, the data of which must also completely coincide with the real estate documents. After the age of 14, a passport appears, and between the ages of 14 and 18, it is necessary to check both of these documents.

The passport must be real; the following details may indicate a fake:

corrections, stickers, crooked font;
the original contains all watermarks, imprints, fonts;
the first digits of the passport series indicate the place of issue, this can be checked, the information must match;
the condition of the passport - if it looks new, but the date was issued 4 years ago - this is a fake.

IMPORTANT!

When changing a surname, the passport holder must present a document from the registry office confirming this process.

If a foreigner presents a foreign passport as an identification document, then it must be accompanied by a notarized translation. Using the online service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, it is possible to check whether the owner’s documents are valid.

Why review documents before purchasing real estate?

This is necessary not only for the buyer, but also for the seller. It is important for the buyer to review the documents, since in a fraudulent transaction it is easy to lose the apartment, and the money will not be returned. You may lose some money, but in any case it is unpleasant.

The most important thing for the seller is that the transaction is safe. If for some reason it is declared invalid, then you will have to return the money, which by the time everything becomes clear will have already been spent. Of course, the chances that the seller will be deceived are less, but they still exist, so all parties to the contract need to be careful.

If the owner is a minor

A seller under 18 years of age is another problematic situation. If the child is under 14 years old, then his legal representatives will not be able to sell the apartment without permission from the guardianship authorities. If there is no such permission, then the transaction must be canceled, since it will still be declared invalid.

If the owner is over 14 years old, then in addition to the consent of the guardianship authorities, written permission from the child itself is also required. It is also necessary to check his passport, compare all the details of the identity document with those indicated in the certificate of ownership and other title documents.

What is the legal purity of an apartment and why check it?

When you decide on an apartment to buy and agree on the price, you need to check that it is even possible to buy. The legal purity of the apartment
is the absence of reasons under which the buyer could lose the rights to the apartment after purchase.

The apartment is legally clear and can be purchased if

there are no legal obstacles to the transaction;
the seller's right of ownership is not limited by encumbrance or seizure;
people who can claim it (children, spouses, relatives) are not registered in the apartment;
in the future there will be no reason to invalidate the transaction.

Checking an apartment for legal purity is the most important stage of a transaction on the secondary market.
If there is something wrong with the apartment or documents, the transaction may be declared invalid. In this case, at best you will lose the deposit you have already paid, and, at worst, the entire apartment. For example, it often happens that the area of an apartment in different documents differs by one tenth - this may be considered an illegal redevelopment.
Or the seller has wives and children who have the right to an apartment, but he kept silent about them. 5-15%
real estate transactions

Checking the legal cleanliness of the apartment is the task of the buyer or his realtor

If you hired an agency

, his lawyer should check the legal purity of the apartment.

You should always check the apartment. Even if you buy it from a friend or grandparent. The seller may not be a fraudster, but he sincerely does not know that it was necessary to legalize the redevelopment, obtain written consent for the sale from his wife, or that the apartment is being left to his tenth cousin in the will.

Checking an apartment by a bank is also not a guarantee of its legal purity. If you lose your apartment as a result of an error, the bank will sympathize and remind you about the next payment.

To make sure that you can buy an apartment, you will have to carefully study dozens of documents. This must be taken seriously - something missed during a quick inspection could cost you your entire apartment. It’s better to play it safe and ask for more documents than to be embarrassed and then have to sue for an apartment for years. An adequate seller himself understands that he is obliged to collect and provide all documents. If a person does not want to provide documents, this is a reason to doubt his honesty.

Check the condition of the apartment

The owner had to approve major redevelopments (changing walls or windows) with the Housing Commission or the municipality. If he didn't do this and you bought an apartment, you may have problems.

To make sure that there were no illegal alterations in the apartment, check the technical documents:

What should you pay attention to before buying an apartment?

Firstly,

When buying an apartment, you should pay attention to who is the owner of the apartment and whether this person is the same as the person selling you this residential premises. If these are different persons, then it is necessary to check the seller’s authority to sell the apartment on behalf of the owner. Powers must be reflected in a notarized power of attorney.

Secondly,

it should be established whether the apartment is joint property of the spouses. If the apartment is the joint property of spouses, but only one of the spouses appears in the extract from the Unified State Register, then it is necessary to require the seller to provide a notarized consent of the second spouse to complete the purchase and sale transaction.

Third,

determine whether minors living or registered in the apartment are the owners of the housing being sold. If so, then it is necessary to obtain consent from the seller for the alienation of real estate, issued by the guardianship and trusteeship authorities.

Fourthly,

At the time of sale, all persons registered there must be discharged from the apartment. If someone cannot come to submit an application, but is about to be discharged, wait for all persons to be deregistered before registering the transaction, otherwise you and only you will then have to seek their deregistration through the court.

Fifthly,

carefully check that the apartment layout matches the technical documentation. If the former owners carried out illegal or uncoordinated redevelopment, it will take a lot of time to legalize it and it is not a fact that such legalization will be possible (especially if the load-bearing walls have been changed).

NOTE: An additional check for the legal purity of an apartment when purchasing can be a conversation with neighbors: how often the owners have changed; who lives in the apartment; whether anyone died there recently and whether there are heirs.