“Adverse possession, civil circulation and human dignity: commentary on the Ruling of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation No. 18-P dated March 25, 2026” — article by Tatyana Tereshchenko for the publication “Zakon”
An article by Tatiana Tereshchenko, Head of the Analytical Practice at Prime Advice Law Offices, for the "Legal Chronicle" section in the "Zakon" magazine. This section includes several short pieces by different authors on significant events. The authors write about what captured their attention in the legal sphere over the previous month.
The Ruling of the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation No. 18-P dated March 25, 2026 is intriguing for its semantic multilayeredness. On the surface, it resolves a very specific issue: is it permissible for the purposes of adverse possession to add the predecessor's period of possession in a situation where possession was transferred under a contract, rather than by way of universal legal succession? However, the significance of the Ruling is not exhausted by this.
The reason for the appeal turned out to be quite prosaic. The applicant purchased a building from a company that had possessed it for a long time but had not formalized ownership. Subsequently, he attempted to recognize his ownership of this object by way of adverse possession, but the arbitrazh courts refused. They proceeded from the fact that upon the transfer of property under a contract, the acquirer is not the legal successor of the previous possessor within the meaning of paragraph 3 of Article 234 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, and therefore is not entitled to add the previous period to his own possession (paragraphs 1.1–1.3 of Ruling No. 18-P).