The answer to this question was given by the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation. And the dispute was noticed by the legal and informational portal GARANT.RU.
The essence of the dispute: a certain citizen, an individual entrepreneur, was declared bankrupt. His property is legally required to be sold and the CFO has announced a public auction. The land and the house that was on it were put up for sale. It was indicated that all the assets belonged to the debtor by right of ownership and were pledged to the bank.
Our hero applied to participate in the auction, won, and the financial director, on behalf of the owner, signed the agreement for the purchase and sale of the property.
After signing the contract, the buyer proceeded to register the transfer of ownership of the house and land. To do this, I requested an extract from the Unified State Real Estate Registry and from it I learned that this property was seized during the investigation of a criminal case three years ago. And the arrest was not canceled at the time the sales contract was concluded.
The buyer was outraged and rejected the contract. He demanded the money back because, due to the arrest, he could not become the owner of the land and the house, and the financial manager did not notify him of the existence of the arrest.
But the money was not returned to the buyer and he went to court. But there he was unlucky: the court decided that the buyer was to blame and refused to collect the money from the seller. The appeal coincided with the conclusion that the buyer could have been aware of the seizure of the property. According to the court, the fact that the disputed property is put up for sale does not in itself terminate the contract of sale, which means that it is not necessary to return the money received.
In this way, the dispute reached the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation.
The Judicial College of Economic Disputes of the Supreme Court concluded that the courts did not study all the circumstances necessary for the correct resolution of the conflict. The Supreme Court said that the detention is annulled by the body that imposed it, and this circumstance changes the matter.
The presence of a seizure record is grounds for suspending state registration of the transfer of property. And this makes it impossible for the seller to comply with the obligation to transfer the property rights to the object of the purchase and sale contract.
And if the seller fails to fulfill the obligation to transfer the sold goods, the buyer has the right to refuse to fulfill the sales contract. As proof of his words, the Supreme Court cited Article 463 of the Civil Code and the Resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation (dated March 14, 2014 No. 16).
Simply put, the buyer can terminate the contract of sale if the seller refuses to deliver the goods sold. After all, otherwise it would be a “serious violation of the balance of interests.”
Considering the impossibility of transferring ownership of seized property in a criminal case, the Supreme Court stated that the buyer has “the inalienable right to unilaterally reject the contract of sale concluded as a result of the auction.” To exercise this right, it does not matter whether the information about the property that the seller provided to the buyer was true.
According to the Supreme Court, it is the seller who is responsible for breach of contract, so the buyer has the right to demand a refund.
In addition, the board recalled that, in accordance with Article 110 of the Federal Law (dated October 26, 2002 N 127) “On Insolvency (Bankruptcy)”, the sale of the property of an individual entrepreneur declared bankrupt is carried out the following way.
The organizer of the auction is obliged to indicate in the message about the sale of the property information about its composition.
The organizer of the auction is obliged to indicate in the notice of sale of the property information about its composition and characteristics. Therefore, when answering the question of whether the buyer should know about the existence of grounds preventing the transfer of the acquired property, the court must take into account not only the buyer’s actions to obtain information about the property, but also the behavior. of the seller, who, as a general rule, is responsible for the sale of the encumbered asset.
The Supreme Court stated that whether the seller intentionally concealed from buyers information about the presence of encumbrances on the property sold at auction that prevented the transfer of this property to the ownership of the buyer. And this is a violation of the law. In our case, the seller did just that. And the seller’s objections to the buyer’s ability to find out about the arrest in the Unified State Register cannot be taken into account.
Definition of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation N 305-ES21-18687
THE NAIS IS OFFICIAL EDITOR ON NAIS NEWS