In 2006 a new fight is going to start against the illegal construction of buildings. For that reason at the end of the current year the executive and legislative powers got well prepared. They have done certain amendments in the law on urban development, civil law, administrative law, criminal and land laws. They have created a so-called special package.
First the penalty of illegal construction was raised from 70000 AMD up to 200000 AMD and the ultimate fine/penalty after the violation of the supervising body decision was raised up to 2 million 500000 AMD. Administrative and criminal penalty is also anticipated for supervising bodies. The penalty is 2500 multiplied to the minimum wage rate or a two-year arrest. These new legislative acts have existed since November 26 and are supposed to be applied. The head of the legal department of the City Council Artyom Sargsyan conditioned the raise of penalties of the raise of the volumes of illegal construction. “A citizen may build a garage overnight and pay 70000 AMD penalty. What’s the problem with that?”, said Mr. Sargsyan.
What is supposed to happen to the illegally constructed buildings, which have been built prior to this law? In 2001 it was estimated that there were 108000 illegal buildings in Yerevan. Over the recent years about 33000 illegal buildings were legalized. But those buildings also included the ones constructed after 2001. This means that over 100000 illegal buildings are still supposed to be legalized. The new stage of legalization will start in 2006. This is when the law on “Illegal Construction” is supposed to be adopted. However the most shocking news is that all the illegal buildings will become state property. “The fight against the illegal construction implies not only penalties. Article 188 of the Civil Code defines that herein anything built by the citizen without state license will become state property. Even if you put two pieces of bricks on top of each other it will still belong to the state. Therefore, the state may sell or give it to the citizen as a present. This is the restriction. There will be no legalization process any more. The citizen should understand that he/she should receive the documents and license of construction in advance. Our fight is not against the previously built ones. Our fight is aimed to make sure that there are no illegal buildings constructed any more”.
And for the previously built illegal buildings the appropriate committee of the City Council is supposed to determine whether those correspond to urban norms. If the City Council committee finds out that the building doesn’t correspond to the urban norms it will make a decision to dismount it. The builder is responsible for dismounting the building. If he refuses to do so a city or community body does that, however later the expenditures are reimbursed by the builder. If the committee finds out that the building corresponds to the urban norms the builder will have to wait for another decision to define the amount of money for legalization. The government should define a new order for that building in order to decide whether the building should be sold to the builder, gifted, etc.
According to this, the citizen, by using the sinful permission of the City Council, starts to build a house or a garage without documents. During the construction period he makes a “deal” with certain officials and “acquires” all the necessary documents. Furthermore, even before the construction it is impossible to get permission from the City Council without some “bribe”. But this is the best option. There are many cases when the citizen, after starting the constitution is not able to acquire the necessary permission. There are even cases when the illegally constructed building was sold without those documents. But this is only one side of the issue. Now those buildings must become state property before legalization. And a great process of finding acquaintances, getting-taking bribes is supposed to start soon. The first stage of this process will start as soon as the committee of the City Council decides whether the building corresponds to urban norms or not. If you find a “way” to overcome this stage you will have to encounter the next stage of legalization, which is – the City Council committee will decide what price to name for the building, which had been constructed by you. The committee may be kind enough to give it to you as a present. But hardly the officials of our City Council would agree to do a favor like that without “bribe”. Or maybe they might agree if the applicant is a statesman or an oligarch. And if you are not able to make a deal with them you might end up buying the building at a market price. Options are various. Thus, our city authorities made sure that the amount of bribes also increases together with the restrictions of the law. It is possible that this new initiative may make the citizens start construction only after acquiring the necessary documents. But the city authorities will still have the bribes in reserve. While talking to us Artyom Sargsyan did not share this opinion with us and said: “Maybe there were cases like this. I can’t say anything. I’m the lawyer of the City Council. Let other bodies be occupied with these kinds of issues”.