Residential buildings, apartments, and rooms in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions that show “signs of being ownerless property” will be transferred to the ownership of local occupation administrations, Vedomosti reported.
The bill, drafted by Russia’s Construction Ministry, was approved by a government legislative commission on October 20. Vedomosti noted that such measures are already being applied in the annexed territories, but the new law would formalize them at the federal level.
The proposed legislation defines “ownerless” housing as property “for which there are no valid ownership documents or whose owner cannot be identified,” according to Alexander Yakubovsky, a member of the State Duma’s Construction and Housing Committee from the ruling United Russia party. Such status, he said, would be assigned “based on an inventory, registration data, and inspection reports.”
The bill would allow Russian authorities to dispose of so-called “ownerless” housing in several ways. For example, it could be handed over to Russian citizens permanently residing in the occupied territories who lost their homes as a result of “fighting, terrorist attacks, or acts of sabotage,” provided they have no other livable property, Vedomosti reported. The housing could also be returned to former owners.
Additionally, such property could be designated as service housing for government and municipal employees, military personnel, police officers, teachers, and medical workers.
Yakubovsky said the bill would create a legal framework for providing housing to residents displaced by the war and regulate the use of “ownerless” housing stock in Ukraine’s occupied territories.
In August 2025, Oleg Skufinsky, head of Russia’s Federal Service for State Registration, Cadastre, and Cartography (Rosreestr), said his agency had identified 550,000 “ownerless” properties in the annexed territories of Ukraine.