On 19 August 2018, the President of Ukraine signed Law of Ukraine “On Amending Certain Legislative Acts of Ukraine regarding the Issue of Land Collective Ownership, Improving the Land Use Rules in Agricultural Land Areas, Preventing Raiding and Stimulating Irrigation in Ukraine” No. 2498-VIII, dated 10 July 2018, that will enter into force on 1 January 2019.

The law stipulates several key principles that should simplify the conduct of the agricultural business. In particular, the law:

  • allows to use several types of agricultural land for commodity agricultural production without changing its designated purpose
  • allows to exchange the rights to use land plots that are located on a single landmass for the period of the lease agreement duration by concluding sublease agreements without consents from the land plots owners. The lessees will only have to notify the landlords about the exchange within five days from the date of the state registration of the sublease rights
  • sets a pre-emptive right to the user of a substantial part (75% or more) of the agricultural landmass to lease/sublease other parts of the mass
  • allows to cultivate agricultural products on land plots under field roads located in a mass of the agricultural land (except for mass-limiting roads) and on land plots under the protective forest strips, if users ensure saving melioration functions of such strips

However, the law also limits:

  • the duration of the right of emphyteusis and superficies over private land plots by 50 years
  • the exchange of land plots of state and municipal ownership with the land plots of all types of property, if the difference in normative monetary assessments of such land plots exceeds 10%

In general, the law expands the range of instruments for the land consolidation. While these instruments are still limited given the land sale moratorium, this is nevertheless definitely a positive development.


Additional notes

For further information on the topic please contact Mykola Stetsenko, Co-managing Partner, or by telephone +380 44 591-3355 or via e-mail.