Increasingly, Ukrainians turn to state bodies or lawyers with an unexpected problem: in the registry, they discover two different residential addresses at the same time, which are listed as valid at the same time. In some cases, it is about duplication due to technical errors when entering data, in others – about the results of reforms, changes in administrative division or double registration when traveling abroad. The consequences of this can be unexpectedly serious: from misunderstandings when applying for a subsidy or assistance to the risks of recognizing a person as not living at any of the addresses.
The editors of IA “FAKT” turned to the lawyers of the “Repeshko and Partners” Bar Association to find out why similar situations arise and what actions should be taken if you find that you “live” in several places at the same time in the state base.
Indeed, now there are not isolated situations of duplicating addresses that citizens are currently facing. Imagine a fairly standard situation with a completely unusual ending: the owner of an apartment building dies. Of course, the heirs go to formalize the inheritance, because all the necessary documents are in hand, everyone accepted the inheritance in a timely manner, the notary takes the case to work, submits numerous requests, including to the register of the territorial community to find out who was registered with the testator at the time of death. At this point, the heirs are struck with horror – in the certificate provided by the village or city council, another 1, 2, and sometimes up to 10 completely unknown citizens may be registered at the address in the inherited house.
Another option, when the heirs are heartbroken, are cases in which the notary enters the register to check the information on the ownership rights of real estate, and he gives as the owner a completely unknown person, while the ownership right for this person may not have been registered even yesterday, but several decades ago.
The fact is that the state has been transferring all paper documents to electronic registers for several years now. Of course, the electronic registry does not make errors and clearly monitors the information entered into it. This applies to any state register – citizens registered in a certain community, property rights to real estate, etc. At the same time, mistakes that were made by officials of state bodies fifty, thirty, or even eighty years ago come to the surface. In the example we have given, there is no crime, but a banal duplication of addresses is revealed.
This can occur when two or more properties share the same address. At the same time, these real estate objects are located within the same settlement, but not even next to each other. According to the Law of Ukraine “On Geographical Names”, two identical names cannot exist within one administrative-territorial unit, but such cases occur quite often. Sometimes the local government itself discovers and eliminates this incident, other authorities do not have to do this, and each owner of real estate with a duplicate address solves the problem independently.
As a rule, of two streets with the same names, the smaller one is renamed. So, for example, in 2016 in Kharkiv fixed the problem with identical addresses by renaming all those that had twin brothers. So, in Kharkiv, Bakulina Street, which is located near the station m. “Naukova” in Shevchenkivskyi District kept its name, and Bakulina Street in Kyivskyi District, which is located in the private sector and consists of five buildings, was named Partizansky Lane.
What should those owners do who are unlucky with the local authorities and need to resolve the address issue on their own? Once this issue was within the competence of the local authorities, then in 2021, changes were made to the current legislation and this issue was brought to the discretion of the court, determining that the issue of changing the address is determined by the court as the owner is a private person/persons. However, in practice, it turned out that such a solution to the issue is quite difficult, because the court cannot take a new address from the ceiling, which does not yet exist, and the certificates received from the local authorities can quickly lose their relevance until the court makes its decision in a year and a half. Therefore, from 2025, the resolution of the issue of duplicating addresses by law has again been assigned to the competence of local authorities, namely, a citizen applies to the center for the provision of administrative services, which forwards the application with all the documentation to the local department of architecture, and this department already decides whether there are grounds for a change and, if so, which address to provide instead of the old one.
It should be noted that there are citizens who do not want to change their twin address, noting that the second object of real estate was built or registered later, they believe that the owners of the other object should do this, but under the law there is no mechanism of coercion that would make it possible to force the other owner, and not you, to change the duplicate address. So, if you want to process an inheritance, arrange documents or protect your rights, you will have to change the address for your real estate.
Changing the address of your property can happen in two ways in case of duplication: at the initiative of the local authority or the owner of the property.
According to the law, the numbering of real estate objects is arranged:
- in the event that the address does not correspond to the actual location of the object;
- in case of detection of duplicate addresses of existing objects;
- in case of doubling of addresses as a result of unification of settlements;
- in the case when the numbering of objects was carried out in a different way than provided for in this Procedure, for the subsequent numbering of new objects, the numbering is arranged;
- change of address with the requisite “number of a separate part of the object, including in case of detection of duplication of numbers of separate parts of the object” is carried out in the order of ordering the numbering of separate parts of the object.
- in cases established by law.
Arrangement of numbering of buildings is carried out using the Register of construction activities. At the same time, the address is assigned to construction objects, houses, buildings, structures, apartments, garage boxes, car spaces, other residential and non-residential premises, which are independent objects of real estate. At the same time, the address is not assigned:
- temporary structures;
- buildings and structures that belong to the corresponding building or structure, which are their constituent part;
- other real estate objects, the list of which is determined by the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine in the Procedure for assigning addresses of real estate objects (hereinafter – the Procedure for assigning addresses).
However, the provision of an address to a land plot is regulated by separate legislation, and the main thing in such a case is not the address, but rather the cadastral number of a specific land plot.
It is worth knowing that, according to the general rule, the provision of an address to an immovable object is subject to certain rules. In the requisites of the address “street name” the generic designation is indicated first, then the street name. For avenues, boulevards, alleys, highways, roads, roads, the abbreviated or full generic designation is indicated after the name, if the name is an adjective.
In street names consisting of a first name and a surname, the first name is indicated first, and then the surname. Street names derived from nicknames are noted in the usual order. In the name of the street, which consists of a rank and a surname, the rank is indicated first, and then the surname. In street names consisting of numbers and words, the numbers are indicated before the words (25 Severnya Prosika, 1 Travnya Street, 993 Rifle Regiment Street).
Arabic numerals are used for object numbering. The object number can also contain a letter. A letter is used when it is not possible to ensure the consecutive numbering of buildings located along the street (for example, in the case of construction of two or more buildings instead of one, division of buildings into two or more blocks). A letter can also be used for buildings located (or under construction) in the middle of the block and not having a facade facing the street. In this case, the number of the nearest residential building (for other residential buildings) or structure (for other structures) that has a facade facing the street receives the letter “A”, and the building or buildings (structure or structures) receive other letters accordingly.
For the numbering of objects, capital letters of the Ukrainian alphabet are used in the corresponding sequence, while the letter is indicated after the number with a hyphen. It is according to this principle that the issue of address duplication, which occurs at the owner’s initiative, is usually regulated. For example, if there are two houses with the address “Parkova Street 30”, then a citizen who applied for a solution to the issue of ordering the address will receive the address “Parkova Street 30-А”. However, there are cases of residents of a small town who, as heirs, found out that two houses and a store are registered at their address. Therefore, they have already received the letter “B” in the address for the house.
There is one more nuance. The numbering of objects located on the territory of a garden, country cooperative, society, etc., is carried out in accordance with the general development plan of the cooperative, society, etc., and other planning and project documentation.
So, if you find that your personal property or inherited property has a duplicate address, don’t panic. The issue is currently being resolved administratively. Documents for assigning, changing, correcting, or canceling an address are submitted to the authorized bodies for assigning addresses (local community architecture department):
- in person through the center for the provision of administrative services;
- in electronic form through the electronic office of the Unified State Electronic System in the field of construction;
- are sent by registered letter with a description of the attachment of the center for the provision of administrative services – for objects that, according to the class of consequences (responsibility), belong to objects with minor consequences (СС1).
In order to avoid surprises in the form of twin addresses, we advise you to register your documents in the state register of real property rights for real estate ownership acquired before January 1, 2013. It is during the entry of information into the registry that the fact of duplication may be revealed, but you will have time to solve the issue of organizing the address and do it in a leisurely manner, at your own pace.
It is also necessary to obtain an extract from the register of the territorial community at the Central Administrative Office in order to find out the persons registered at the address of your real estate. In the case of a duplicate address (this exists, for example, if your real estate is registered in the state register of property rights to immovable property, but the real estate with the same address is not, because it was purchased/built long before the appearance of the electronic register), the list of those registered will contain completely unfamiliar surnames. However, there is no need to be afraid, because we have already told what to do in such a case.
