Lawyers from Pepeliaev Group’s St. Petersburg office have successfully challenged the cadastral value of Petrovskiy Fort

Lawyers from Pepeliaev Group’s St Petersburg Office have successfully completed a project that involved challenging in the first instance and appeal courts the cadastral value of Petrovskiy Fort, one of the largest business centres in St Petersburg. The decision establishing a cadastral value equal to the market value came into force on 30 November 2016. 

The case is significant because, during the dispute, Pepeliaev Group’s lawyers had to engage independent expert organisations on numerous occasions to establish the market value of the real estate facility. In total they carried out three independent evaluations: one was held at the pre-trial stage and two in the context of court expert reviews. Also, our firm’s lawyers provided the court with other evidence of the true market value of the business centre.  

The Appeal Court has confirmed that the conclusions of the second court expert review were correct. This resulted in the cadastral value of the facility being reduced by RUB 2 billion (approximately USD 30 million at the current exchange rate).

‘Current city law dictates that property tax is calculated based on the cadastral value of facilities with a commercial purpose. For this reason, our victory in court significantly reduces our client’s tax burden,' comments Sergey Spasennov, a Partner at Pepeliaev Group. 'Taking into account that many major St Petersburg companies have failed to significantly reduce the cadastral value of their facilities by going to court, it is good news for all owners of real estate that Petrovskiy Fort’s case has been successfully resolved.’ 

The project was handled by the team from the firm's St Petersburg Land Law, Real Estate and Construction Practice: Elena Krestyantseva, Head of Practice, Vadim Insarov, Associate, and Aleksandra Grischenkova, Junior Associate.