Ukraine is witnessing an unprecedented surge in administrative and judicial proceedings related to property taxation. According to the Unified State Register of Court Decisions, the number of cases involving disputes with the tax authority has reached historical highs, doubling compared to the pre-war period. Experts link this trend to systemic errors in tax calculation and data desynchronization between state registries.
Statistics of record growth in lawsuits
An analysis of judicial practice reveals an alarming trend. If in 2021 the number of decisions in such cases was 3,188 (an average of 266 per month), then in 2025 this figure reached 6,128 decisions, averaging more than 510 cases per month. Already in the first half of 2026, 3,074 decisions were recorded, with the monthly average (512 cases) exceeding the final figures for the entire previous year. This indicates that the problem is not temporary but systemic and affects an increasing number of citizens.
Technical failures and 'dead souls' in the registry
The main cause of legal battles is incorrect tax notification-decisions (PPR). As notary Natalia Kozaeva explains, the key problem lies in the delay of data transfer. A notary records a transaction in the registry on the day of signing, while the State Tax Service (STS) receives this information only quarterly. Furthermore, tax is calculated for the previous year, creating a time lag: in 2026, citizens receive notifications for 2025, when ownership rights may have already changed.
A particular complexity is the situation with property whose rights were registered before 2013 through the Bureau of Technical Inventory (BTI). These records were not automatically transferred to the Unified Registry. As a result, the system may simultaneously contain an up-to-date record of the new owner and an uncancelled archival record of the old one, causing former owners to continue receiving 'happy letters' for property they sold years ago.
Contradictory data and combat zones
There is also a specific issue regarding tax calculation for property located in temporarily occupied territories (TOT) or in combat zones. Danilo Hetmanets, Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on Finance, notes that the STS previously incorrectly accounted for such areas when calculating tax benefits, leading to incorrect notifications. However, according to experts, the situation regarding benefits for such objects has recently begun to change, but old errors continue to surface as new lawsuits.
Effective strategies for protecting rights
Lawyers from the Sayenko Kharenko firm warn citizens against rushing to court. A judicial process in such cases can last a year or more and requires significant financial costs for court fees and legal services. Instead, experts recommend using the administrative appeal procedure. A citizen can submit an application to the STS to reconcile data with original documents. As a rule, after recalculation, the tax authority issues a new, correct notification, and the previous one is cancelled, allowing the problem to be resolved significantly faster and cheaper.
