This interpretive Judgment on lease contracts makes substantial additions to the previous one adopted in 2011. The most important addition consists in recognising the admissibility of a contract on leasing a future object of real estate (that is, an object which is not yet acquired by lessor or not created by him). The violation by lessor of his contractual duty to transfer the object to lessee shall entail compensation of damages. This interpretation does not, however, extend to the cases concerning structures built without proper authorization because the law does not permit assumption of obligations related to such structures.
Besides, the Plenary Session has explained, in particular:
- in which cases cadastre passport of an object of real estate is required for registration;
- that parties may conclude such a contract of lease under which not a whole thing, but only a part of it shall be transferred for use to lessee;
- that lease contract concluded with lessor who at the moment of transferring the object of real estate is a lawful possessor of this object but whose right of ownership has not been yet registered may not be regarded as invalid per se;
- that the arguments of the lessee, who used the respective property but not paid for it, that the right of ownership belongs not to lessor but other persons and therefore the lease contract is an invalid transaction, should not be taken into consideration by courts;
- that disputes flowing from suits of owners whose property has been leased out by a person, who was not empowered to do so, regarding the recovery of the value of the use of property during the period of its being unlawfully possessed shall be resolved in accordance with the provisions of Article 303, Civil Code, on settlements following the withdrawal of property from unlawful possession of another, and not in accordance with general rules on returning the amount of unjust enrichment (Arts 1102 and 1105(2), Civil Code);
- that if a lease contract – in the absence of a State regulation of the amount of lease payments - provides for the right of lessor to change such amount unilaterally, and it is proved that as a result of such unilateral change it has grown disproportionately as compared with market rates for analogous property in the same locality within the same period of time and has exceeded those rates substantively, this shall testify to the abuse of right on the part of lessor, and on the basis of paragraph 2 of Art 10 of the Civil Code the court shall deny recovery of lease payments as to the part by which the average market rates have been exceeded;
- that it is contrary to law to refuse registration of the right of ownership to an incomplete construction solely on the ground of the expiry of the term of leasing of the land plot on which the incomplete construction has been built.
