Legal Significance of Land Plot Alienation Auctions in the Russian Federation

Introduction. Studying legal significance of the auctions as a key mechanism for the alienation of land plots is a particularly relevant objective, as this legal institution ensures implementation of the principles of equality, competition, and economic efficiency of the real estate title transfer, which directly affects the stability of civil transactions and protects the interests of both public law entities and private persons. The legal framework regulating land alienation auctions is a complex system consisting of the interrelated provisions of the Civil and Land Codes of the Russian Federation and pertinent Federal laws and regulations, therefore, the system analysis approach should be used to study its law enforcement practices and identify the issues of conflict of laws. The aim of the article is to conduct a comprehensive study of the legal framework regulating the auctions on alienation of land plots in the Russian Federation.
Materials and Methods. The materials under the study included the regulatory legal acts of the Russian Federation, court case materials, and statistical data on the land auctions conducted. Dogmatic legal and comparative legal methods of analysis were used, as well as the content analysis of the scientific publications and court case materials, and other methods.
Results. The significant conflicts of laws between the general provisions of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation referring to the auctions and the specific norms of the Land Code of the Russian Federation have been identified, which leads to the ambiguity in the enforcement practices and increases the risk of disputing the auction results in court. The analysis of court cases has revealed the aspects of greatest concern in the auction procedure: unclear criteria for selecting the participants, controversial approaches to determining the starting price of a plot based on the cadastral or market value, and ambiguous legal consequences of sole-source bidding. This justifies the need to standardize the procedural requirements and clarify the grounds for recognizing an auction as valid or invalid. To improve the legal framework, the following proposals have been formulated: stipulation of a uniform procedure for calculating the starting price, with mandatory involvement of the independent assessors; detailed specification of bidders’ requirements depending on the land category features; mandatory implementation of the pre-trial dispute settlement procedures related to denial to participate in bidding, etc. This will improve the transparency of land plot alienation procedures and ensure the balance of interests of all the participants.
Discussion and Conclusion. Legal regulation of land plot alienation auctions is characterized by the significant cross-sectoral specificity and availability of conflicts between the provisions of Civil and Land Codes of the Russian Federation, which negatively affects the stability of land transactions and impairs protection of the rights of the parties to the legal relationships. Law improvement should focus on standardizing the starting price calculation methods, specifying participants’ requirements, mandatory implementation of the pre-trial dispute settlement procedures, and improving control over the work of electronic platforms. Digitalization of the procedure deserves particular attention: on the one hand, it improves the transparency and accessibility of the procedure, on the other hand, creates new risks related to technical issues, cyber fraud, etc.

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