On 19 December 2024, Ukraine experienced one of the largest cyberattacks on its public registers launched by the Russian Federation. Among the many targeted registers was the State Register of Property Rights to Real Estate ("Real Estate Register").
Because of the cyberattack, the operation of the Real Estate Register was suspended. Without access to the Real Estate Register, it was impossible to acquire, alienate, lease for a long term or otherwise dispose of real property. As a result, most of the real estate-related transactions in Ukraine have been temporarily put on hold.
On Monday, 20 January 2025, the Ministry of Justice of Ukraine announced that all the remaining critical registers, which were not yet restored, including the Real Estate Register, have finally resumed operation.
Access by notaries and state registrars to the Real Estate Register is still suspended due to the data update but is expected to be restored in the next couple of days.
Recommendations
- Once full access to the Real Estate Register is restored, as a precaution, make sure that the records containing information about your rights or encumbrances to real estate are available in the Real Estate Register and are correct. If there are no records or the records are inaccurate, please consider the following actions:
Ensuring that all title documents (such as relevant agreements, ownership certificates, extracts from the Property Rights Register, etc.) are readily available; and - Contacting the state registrar/notary to discuss restoration of the relevant records in the Real Estate Register based on the available title documents or correction of the identified mistakes.
By Serhiy Piontkovsky and Lina Nemchenko, Partners, Elmaz Abkhairova, Senior Associate, Baker McKenzie
