Sofiia Residence legal review

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Prices in July 2021 – Sofiia Residence

Number of rooms	Area	Price per m2
1-room	37 – 76 m2	28000 – 35000 UAH/m2
2-room	49 – 102 m2	26000 – 37000 UAH/m2
3-room	69 – 149 m2	25000 – 37000 UAH/m2
4-room	100 – 159 m2	25000 – 33000 UAH/m2
5-room	98 – 173 m2	25000 – 35000 UAH/m2

Installments – initial payment from 50%

Complex features

• Class – business
• Number of buildings – 57
• Number of floors – 10
• Construction type – brick
• Heating – individual (in-apartment)
• Walls – brick
• Insulation – polystyrene foam, mineral wool
• Ceiling height – 2.8 m (floor to ceiling)
• Parking – lot, above-ground multi-level

Under the single name Sofia, several residential complexes are combined: Sofia Nova, Sofia Club, Sofia City and Sofia Residence. Sofiia Residence is a large-scale project, a kind of small town, providing for 57 buildings. As for the future of the complex – these are not just ten-story high-rises, but a whole infrastructure that takes all issues into account.

Visualizations of the “Sofiia Residence” residential complex

Infrastructure

It takes about 10 minutes by car from Zhytomyrska metro station to the complex. Sofiia Residence is located on an area of about 60 hectares. According to the developer, the complex territory will be closed and guarded, with a large number of various infrastructure facilities – a sports complex with a stadium, a clinic with an inpatient department, a school, kindergartens. That is, the presentation is not just about shops and malls, but about facilities used by broad layers of the population. Therefore, closing such facilities to non-residents is not very advantageous. For understanding: the territory will be closed only nominally; if you say where you are going (to some establishment, for example), they let you in.

Building commissioning

The first stage and part of the second stage of the complex have already been commissioned. The nearest commissioning was planned for Q2 2021 for four buildings of the second phase on Martynov Avenue. But today the sales department promises the end of autumn 2021. Let’s examine the documents and assess the chances of commissioning these buildings.

Construction permits

There are two current construction permits:

1. the first — issued for the block within Martynov Avenue and Skovorody Street;
2. the second — issued for the block within Martynov Avenue and Schastlyva Street and Skovorody Street.

These two permits are issued for different land plots. That is, some buildings on certain plots will be built under one permit, while other buildings on other plots will be built under the second permit. The Construction Activity Register contains a record that the developer tried to commission a building at Martynov Ave., 13 in May 2021, but was refused. The official reason for the refusal is that not all necessary works were completed in the building (for example, no individual electricity meters in apartments, elevators not started). But if the problem were only this, it could have been fixed since May.

Land

The construction permits specify 18 land plots, so the land on which the complex is built is not one giant plot but many different plots.

At the moment, there is no information in the court registry about lawsuits regarding these 18 plots. The check showed that all plots are privately owned and have the designated purpose — for residential construction. Some of the land belongs to one person, and some to another person.

Therefore, if you plan to buy housing in Sofiia Residence, when signing the contract, pay attention to which specific land plot your building is being built on and who owns the land. The contract should indicate the cadastral number of the land under your building (if it is missing, insist that it be specified). The information on the Cadastral Map website will allow you to clarify who owns the land plot. Make sure that there is a contract between the landowner and the entity that sells you the apartment, and that the entity selling the apartment has the right to do so.

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Client and developer

It was extremely difficult to gather documents on Sofiia Residence. Useful legal information is absent on the complex’s website. On many real estate sites there are scans of all documents and draft contracts that investors sign, but such scans are missing on the Sofiia Residence website. If the documents were all in order, what would be the point of hiding them?

The project owner is a private individual. The developer appears to be Mr. Martynov, who is quite well known in Sofiivska Borshchahivka and you can read about him on the complex website. But the contract for purchasing in the building under construction is not concluded directly with the project owner, but with a Fund.

Courts

In 2019 the prosecutor’s office filed a lawsuit against GASK asking to cancel the commissioning of the building at Yabloneva St., 15

The point is that the issuance of the construction permit and the subsequent commissioning were carried out with violations. Since the complex is located in close proximity to Zhulyany airport, the building heights and their location must be agreed with the State Aviation Service (Gosaviatsia). New buildings can affect flight safety, the operation of aviation technical instruments, and proximity to the airport may mean significant exceedance of noise norms in the residential area.

The prosecutor’s office won at the first and second instance courts, and the certificate of commissioning was revoked. But already in October 2019 the Cassation Court overturned the previous court decisions and the commissioning certificate came back into force.

But the following is interesting: the Cassation Court’s verdict is not that there were no violations in essence, but that the plaintiff was incorrect — that the prosecutor’s office could not file such a claim because GASK is the proper body to do so.

This is not the only building in Sofiia Residence whose commissioning was challenged by the prosecutor. Similar court cases involved:

• 810/3161/18 — the building at Martynov 8;
• 810/3160/18 — Martynov 10;
• 810/3162/18 — Martynov 12.

They all went through a similar procedure. And everywhere the refusals were related to the fact that the incorrect plaintiff filed the case, not that the construction is lawful. Accordingly, the following conclusions suggest themselves:

• the court did not state that the construction is lawful and complies with standards. And this is a real reason to think about the safety of such a complex. Yes, you can hear that all of Kyiv falls into the airport protection zone. But the difference between flight heights over Pozniaky and over Sofiivska Borshchahivka is obvious.
• a similar situation with courts may arise for any building within Sofiia Residence.

And one more case. Mr. Martynov and the owners of the lands where buildings are being constructed filed a lawsuit against GASK. The fact is that from 2016 to 2018 the developer obtained 35 Urban Planning Conditions and Restrictions. This document is one of the necessary documents to obtain a construction permit. The urban planning conditions and restrictions specify that construction is allowed on this land and list the specific features and limitations. And it was precisely around the Urban Planning Conditions and Restrictions that all these prosecutor-initiated court processes developed. But the prosecutor fought there unsuccessfully. Meanwhile, in 2019 GASK by its decision canceled all these 35 Urban Planning Conditions and Restrictions. The developer sued GASK. The developer also asked the court to temporarily suspend the negative GASK decision while the case is being considered. The court did so. And the case in court has been successfully stalled. Administrative court cases are considered for years. As a result, now it turns out that the developer has simply suspended the cancellation of the Urban Planning Conditions and Restrictions in court, but this is a temporary measure; there is no final court decision yet. No one knows what it will be. If the Urban Planning Conditions and Restrictions are ultimately canceled, the commissioning of the buildings will be in serious doubt.

Investment scheme

I called the sales department and asked them to send me the draft contract that I would sign when investing. The manager successfully forgot about me. I called the next day, reminded them, and they finally sent the contract. I managed only to open it and view the first page and the manager deleted the contract. Over the phone he told me that to review any documents I would need to come to the sales office. I called from another number to the sales department. They called back, but still did not provide the documents.

What I did manage to find out. Sofiia Residence uses a notarized preliminary agreement. It is concluded with the Fund. Any documents (construction permits, land documents, draft contract) are promised to be shown only in the sales office. The preliminary agreement scheme itself is not very reliable for protecting investor rights.

I will also state approximate costs for registering an apartment (when the building is already commissioned). This is just preliminary information from the manager. It may change, but I provide the figures to outline the scale of expenses.

You will need to pay: taxes – 8.5%, registration costs – 7,500 UAH (this is for a two-room apartment), notary fees – 2,800 UAH and bank fees – 1,200 UAH.

Conclusions

If I were going to invest in Sofiia Residence, I would definitely look very closely at everything, because risks exist. The issue of the Urban Planning Conditions and Restrictions is definitely open. In a negative scenario this could lead to the buildings not being able to be commissioned.

The prosecutor’s office tirelessly filed batches of lawsuits for years in order to cancel the commissioning of already completed buildings. Whether such a struggle by the prosecutor’s office will continue is unknown.

Another separate topic is the secrecy of the sales department (inability to obtain information, unwillingness to communicate, dropping documents and their hasty deletion, lack of legal documentation on the website).

There is no doubt that Sofiia Residence is visually a very beautiful project. It has attractive design, order is maintained, a closed territory and security. To date, the developer manages to solve construction problems, but whether this will always be the case is unknown. It is up to you to consider these risks and decide whether to invest in this project.