Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian families whose homes were destroyed during the military actions have still not received compensation due to issues with application processing and confirming ownership rights. Despite preliminary estimates indicating that the number of affected households reaches 2.5 million, only 986,000 reports have been submitted to the Register of Damaged and Destroyed Property. Of these, over 425,000 applications contain incomplete or incorrectly formatted information regarding ownership rights, making it impossible to receive compensation.
This is reported by Finway
Main Barriers to Receiving Compensation
The main problem is the lack of verified information about ownership rights in the State Register of Property Rights (SRPR). Many Ukrainians have lost original documents, and the archives of the Bureau of Technical Inventory (BTI) have been destroyed or remain inaccessible. Additionally, obtaining an informational certificate from the BTI is a paid procedure, and many citizens are not even aware of the need to register their rights in the SRPR.
- Lack of original documents proving ownership.
- Destruction or inaccessibility of BTI archives.
- Paid nature of certificates from the BTI.
- Low awareness of the registration procedure in the SRPR.
The Office of the Commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada for Human Rights regularly receives requests from citizens who have lost their homes and cannot confirm their rights due to the aforementioned difficulties.
“During an event organized by us, which involved over 4,000 people, we received more than 150 questions regarding the procedure for registering ownership rights. This indicates a significant need for support and clarification work,” wrote the Commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada for Human Rights.
Necessary Steps to Address the Issue
Dmytro Lubinets, the Commissioner of the Verkhovna Rada for Human Rights, emphasizes the need to intensify the information campaign among the population, especially in communities where internally displaced persons (IDPs) reside. In addition, he calls for the introduction of a simplified administrative procedure for confirming ownership rights without mandatory BTI documents. According to him, copies of documents, decisions from local councils, testimonies, or even old archival data should be sufficient so that Ukrainians do not lose their right to compensation due to the system’s shortcomings.
Strengthening informational efforts and simplifying administrative procedures will be key steps to ensure that citizens who have lost their homes due to the war can exercise their rights and receive the compensation they deserve.