Soldier's Wife Keeps Apartment After Former Owner's Fraud Claim
The buyers had to prove in court that they purchased the Yekaterinburg apartment legally.
A pensioner from Yekaterinburg failed to win back an apartment she sold for 4.4 million rubles (about $48,900 at current rates) to the family of a soldier from Snezhinsk (Chelyabinsk region) participating in the special military operation. The woman insisted she parted with the property under pressure from fraudsters, but the Verkh-Isetsky Court refused to invalidate the transaction.
This is what the apartment looked like after the previous owner moved out.
«As follows from the case materials, the fraudsters acted over three months under the pretext of replacing utility meters,» the joint press service of the Sverdlovsk Region courts said. «First, they convinced the pensioner to transfer all her savings—over 500,000 rubles (about $5,600 at current rates)—to «safe accounts.» Then they provided her with a fake extract from Rosreestr (the state real estate register) «proving» that her apartment had allegedly already been sold by unknown persons. To restore her ownership rights, the fraudsters proposed the only solution: to urgently sell the apartment herself and also transfer the proceeds for «safekeeping.»»
The pensioner gave in to the persuasion and sold her apartment on Shaumyan Street in Yekaterinburg. The buyers—a soldier from Snezhinsk participating in the special military operation and his wife—paid 4.4 million rubles for the one-room apartment measuring 29.8 square meters (about 321 sq ft). According to the former owner, she only realized what had happened when the question of moving out of the apartment arose. In the end, the woman went to court.
«The plaintiff asked to invalidate the transactions for the transfer of funds and the purchase and sale of the apartment without applying the consequences of invalidation. The defendants were the banks and the apartment buyers,» the court press service said. «The plaintiff insisted that at the time she was under continuous psychological pressure and deception and could not understand the consequences of her actions, which the criminals took advantage of.»
However, after examining the case materials and hearing the parties, the court denied the pensioner. The buyers were deemed to be in good faith, and the transaction remained valid.
«The court«s decision will enter into legal force in one month if it is not appealed by the parties,» the press service clarified. «Incidentally, the apartment sold by the pensioner was not her only home; she will not be left on the street.»
We have previously reported on this story. The serviceman«s family, a participant in the special military operation, spent a housing certificate worth 3.2 million rubles (about $35,600 at current rates) on the apartment purchase and saved up the rest of the amount. They considered several options and eventually settled on the apartment on Shaumyan Street.
