On 23 June 2021 the Presidium of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation approved the Digest of case law on disputes relating to construction of real estate objects in the protected zones of pipelines and in the borders of minimum distances to main or industrial pipelines.

The Digest addressed the issues of application of the use-restricted zones legislation until 1 January 2022 and the rights and obligations of the owners of pipelines and constructions situated within their protected zones. In this regard, the Supreme Court clarified the issues related to the procedure of establishing the protected zones. The Digest also specifies the range of regulations, on the basis of which the territory within the borders of minimum distances to a main or industrial pipeline is to be determined prior to the establishment of that zone in accordance with the procedure set out in article 106 of the Land Code of the Russian Federation.

Moreover, some of the clarifications of the Supreme Court address the issues of issuance of permits for building of constructions situated in the protected zones of a pipeline (or in the borders of minimum distances to a pipeline) and declaring these constructions unauthorized. In particular, the Supreme Court clarified that the construction built in such zone cannot be declared unauthorized if public access to information about such zone was not provided, and the developer did not know and could not have known about it. A separate paragraph of the Digest addresses the possibility of review of the case on demolition of an unauthorized construction based on new evidence if the issue of the developer’s awareness about such zone was not resolved.

(see in more detail Digest of case law of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation dated 23 June 2021)