Foreign Investment Process in Ukraine

By now foreigners do not have restrictions in their purchase, ownership, use and resale of real estate in Ukraine and specific types of non-agricultural land.  Some foreign citizens prefer to buy in the Ukraine by means of a local limited company type system to protect their privacy and assets from non-desired attention.  Whether or not this approach suits the individual investor is something to discuss with a lawyer in the Ukraine, hence now Ukraine doesn’t oblige foreigners to create a company in order to invest in real estate in Ukraine.

The services of a decent lawyer should be secured as soon as an investor sets foot in Ukraine and well before any offer to purchase real estate is made. The next person an investor will need to assist with the real estate buying process is an estate agent.  Ukraine is a country where there are both very good estate agents and incredibly corrupt agents who attempt to profit from both the buyer and vendor and potentially resell the same piece of property repeatedly.

If at all possible a real estate in Ukraine investor should seek the advice and recommendations of trusted sources over which agents can be trusted.  Decent property agents in Ukraine are well worth doing business with as they will know about real estate that are for sale before they are ever marketed, but their fees and who actually pays them should be negotiated in advance.

Once a piece of real estate or land has been identified as meeting an investor’s objectives an offer to buy it can be made which, if accepted, will result in the investor and vendor entering into a conditional preliminary sale-purchase agreement.  This contract should be checked by the buyer’s lawyer and then signed in front of a notary and notarized.

At this step a non-refundable deposit should be paid by the real estate investor and the investor’s lawyer should begin doing their due diligence on the real estate, the vendor and the title deeds of the property.  There is usually at least a 14 day gap between the preliminary agreement being signed and the signing and registration of the final contract to allow searches and surveys to be carried out.

To aid the buyer’s lawyer in his searches the vendor should offer the following documents: - 

1) The certificate of privatization or a previous purchase agreement or proof that the vendor is the owner of the real estate as a result of inheritance 

2) The certificate from the Unified Register of Prohibitions on the Disposal of Immovable Real Estate to prove that there is no outstanding debt or legal issues against the real estate being offered for sale 

In terms of the fees, charges and taxes that a real estate investor in Ukraine may incur these include the lawyer’s fees, real estate agent’s fees, property registration fees, pension fund duty and notary fee.