Land Bank accuses village council in Odesa region of blocking land auctions

The State Land Bank Limited Liability Company has accused the Petrovyrivka Village Council in Odesa Oblast of blocking the sublease of 5,400 hectares of state agricultural land through transparent auctions.

The press service of the Land Bank released a statement.

According to the company, the state may suffer losses of more than UAH 100 million in potential revenues. We are talking about 81 land plots in the Berezivskyi district of Odesa region that were in permanent use of a state-owned enterprise under the management of the Ministry of Justice.

At the beginning of the Land Bank project, namely at the stage of approval of the draft order on the withdrawal and transfer of land plots for permanent use, the Petrovirivka village council filed a lawsuit with the court demanding that these lands be recognized as communal.

"Local authorities refer to the Land Code, according to which land outside settlements should belong to territorial communities. However, the code has an important exception: land in permanent use does not fall under this rule," insists Zembank.

In July, after the Cabinet of Ministers issued a decree that seized the land from the state-owned enterprise and transferred it to the permanent use of the state operator, Land Bank, the village council filed a court application for an injunction. As a result, the court seized the land and prohibited any actions with it, including leasing and subleasing it. Currently, the land manager does not even lease them to the State Land Bank.

According to the YouControl service, State Land Bank LLC was founded in 1992 by the State Property Fund of Ukraine.

Кирило Бойко